Reity O'Brien stories from The Center for Public Integrity2015-03-03T19:09:43-05:00http://www.publicintegrity.org/node/10322/rssWho tried to buy the 2014 state elections?http://www.publicintegrity.org/node/16619The individuals, unions, trade groups and others who gave the most.Top 50 donors to state races2015-01-28T05:00:01-05:002015-01-28T05:00:00-05:00Chris Zubak-Skeeshttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/chris-zubak-skeesBen Wiederhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/ben-wiederReity O'Brienhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/reity-obrienRachel Bayehttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/rachel-bayeNational donors pick winners in state electionshttp://www.publicintegrity.org/node/16661Two giant D.C.-based players dominated political giving in 2014 state-level elections.All politics is national?Politics;Democratic Party;Republican Party;Federal Election Commission;Political parties in the United States;Lobbying in the United States;Campaign finance;Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission2015-01-28T13:27:56-05:002015-01-28T05:00:00-05:00<p>If money is influence, the Republican Governors Association wielded more of it than anyone else last year in state elections nationwide.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The group, led in 2014 by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, gave roughly $69 million to candidates, political parties and independent groups — more than double its Democratic counterpart &nbsp;— as it tried to elect Republicans to the top office in as many states as possible. &nbsp;The group <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/01/28/16619/who-tried-buy-2014-state-elections">gave more than any other donor</a> to state-level elections last year —&nbsp;from races for governor to legislator to supreme court justice.</p>
<p>The association applied an effective strategy&nbsp;that’s becoming more common: giving money using multiple paths to circumvent limits on campaign contributions to candidates and parties, a <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/22/15734/whos-calling-shots-states">Center for Public Integrity</a> analysis has found.</p>
<p>In addition to the money it <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/republican-governors-association">spent directly on TV ads</a> and other campaign efforts, the group gave about $14 million&nbsp;to candidates including Illinois’ new Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner. It also gave more than $3 million to state parties, including those in Texas and Maine.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The bulk of the checks it wrote, however, totaling about $50 million, went to other political groups that in turn spent the money on state races.</p>
<p>Its&nbsp;efforts largely paid off. Republicans gained four governorships in 2014 and only lost two, leaving them holding the reins in 31 states.</p>
<p>The group “was designed to supplement what candidates could do on their own in the states,” said <a href="http://www.klgates.com/dick-thornburgh/#background">Dick Thornburgh</a>, a former Pennsylvania governor who turned the association into a powerhouse in the mid-1980s. “Obviously, it’s grown beyond that.”</p>
<p>Its competitor, the <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/democratic-governors-association">Democratic Governors Association</a>, gave $32 million and ranked second among the <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/01/28/16619/who-tried-buy-2014-state-elections">sugar daddies of 2014</a>, according to the Center for Public Integrity’s analysis. The group only picked up one new governor’s mansion, with Pennsylvania’s Tom Wolf defeating incumbent Republican Tom Corbett. (Alaska's Republican incumbent was beaten by an independent, Bill Walker.)</p>
<p>Together,&nbsp;the two governors' groups&nbsp;and other <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/01/28/16619/who-tried-buy-2014-state-elections#category/independent-political-group">national political organizations</a>&nbsp;gave significantly more than <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/01/28/16619/who-tried-buy-2014-state-elections#category/party-campaign">political parties</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/01/28/16619/who-tried-buy-2014-state-elections#category/union">unions</a>, <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/01/28/16619/who-tried-buy-2014-state-elections#category/individual">multimillionaires</a> or <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/01/28/16619/who-tried-buy-2014-state-elections#category/business-trade-group">corporations</a>&nbsp;that also contributed heavily to influence state-level campaigns. The donations went beyond&nbsp;races for governor. The funds made their way into lower-ballot contests such as&nbsp;attorney general, state supreme court justice and state legislator.</p>
<p>The national groups also cropped up on the <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/01/28/16619/who-tried-buy-2014-state-elections">lists of the biggest donors</a> in most states, outgiving homegrown political players in a sign that all politics may now be national.&nbsp;</p>
<p>In all, the <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/01/28/16619/who-tried-buy-2014-state-elections#national">top 50 political givers</a> spread more than $440 million to the people and groups pushing candidates for state office, the Center for Public Integrity found. The list is thick with <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/01/28/16619/who-tried-buy-2014-state-elections#category/individual">billionaires</a> such as former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/01/28/16619/who-tried-buy-2014-state-elections#category/union">unions</a> such as the American Federation of Teachers and <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/01/28/16619/who-tried-buy-2014-state-elections#category/business-trade-group">corporations</a> such as telecom titan AT&amp;T Inc.&nbsp;</p>
<p>They also were more successful in backing winners than most donors, becoming the de facto kingmakers of state politics.&nbsp;</p>
<p>“It’s an amazing amount of power concentrated in a handful of organizations,” said Ed Bender, executive director of the <a href="http://www.followthemoney.org/">National Institute on Money in State Politics</a> that collected some of the data used for the analysis. “If people want to understand why government is dysfunctional, you don’t have to look much farther than this list.”</p>
<p><strong>The&nbsp;<em>Citizens United</em>&nbsp;effect</strong></p>
<p>To identify the kingmakers, the Center for Public Integrity looked at donations given to 2014 state candidates and political parties during 2013 and 2014, as tracked by the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.followthemoney.org/">National Institute on Money in State Politics</a>. Reporters also collected state and federal contribution records for 140 independent organizations that aired&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/state-ad-wars-tracker">political TV ads</a>&nbsp;during 2014 state elections.</p>
<p>The analysis does not include funders of groups that don’t disclose their donors to any state or federal agencies — so-called&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/12/17/16516/secretive-nonprofits-flourished-and-succeeded-2014-state-elections">“dark money” groups</a>. And it does not total overall contributions, because some donors received money from other donors on the list.&nbsp;<strong>[<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/01/28/16660/methodology">More details on the methodology</a>.]</strong></p>
<p>The findings paint a picture of independent groups playing a bigger role in financing state-level elections than even political parties or the candidates’ campaigns, one effect of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/10/18/11527/citizens-united-decision-and-why-it-matters"><em>Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission</em></a>. The 2010&nbsp;<a href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-205.pdf">ruling</a>&nbsp;allowed many groups to accept and spend unlimited amounts of money from corporations, unions and wealthy patrons to influence elections as long as they did not coordinate with the candidates. Thus, they could bypass limits on giving to a candidate or political party and leapfrog ahead.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/01/28/16619/who-tried-buy-2014-state-elections">top 50 donors</a> identified by the Center for Public Integrity gave more than 40 percent of their contributions to independent political groups, surpassing what they gave to either candidates or political parties.</p>
<p>The strategy allows donors to multiply their influence, said Larry Noble, former&nbsp;general counsel of the FEC who now works as an attorney at the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.campaignlegalcenter.org/" style="line-height: 18.9090900421143px;">Campaign Legal Center</a>.<br />
&nbsp;<br />
“You give the maximum to the candidates, but then you want to give more,” he said. “You give to the party committee that’s also going to support the candidate. You give to outside groups that are also going to support the candidate.”</p>
<p>The mega-donors thus control more of the political messages that determine which issues are central to the campaign — roles previously played by candidates and political parties. And in exchange, they may expect the newly elected officials to dance with the ones that brought them.</p>
<p><strong>Behind the curtain</strong></p>
<p>National political groups have their own heavy-hitting donors. But because the groups function as the middlemen of political giving, voters often don’t know the original source of the cash behind a politician’s election.</p>
<p>The Republican Governors Association, for one, served as a conduit for billionaires and corporations looking to influence governors’ races.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The five largest contributors behind the group's gargantuan giving power all appear separately&nbsp;on the Center for Public Integrity’s <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/01/28/16619/who-tried-buy-2014-state-elections">top 50 donor list</a>: Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson; billionaire David Koch, who runs the Kansas-based Koch Industries with his brother; electricity giant Duke Energy; investment firm ETC Capital, whose founder, Manoj Bhargava, also founded the company behind the 5-Hour Energy drink; and billionaire hedge-fund manager Paul Singer, according to IRS records from 2013 and 2014.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, four of the five largest contributors to the counterpart Democratic Governors Association were also familiar names from the <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/01/28/16619/who-tried-buy-2014-state-elections#national">top 50 list</a>: Michael Bloomberg and branches of three labor unions — the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the National Education Association and the Service Employees International Union.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The Republican and Democratic governors' associations employ another common strategy that both amplifies and obfuscates their giving: contributing to “an outside group with a good-sounding name” to make support of a candidate look more diverse and to help attract different constituencies, Noble said.</p>
<p>For example, state records collected by the Center for Public Integrity show that the Democratic Governors Association gave more than $6 million to a group called&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/making-colorado-great">Making Colorado Great</a>, while the Republican Governors Association gave nearly $5.5 million to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/grow-connecticut">Grow Connecticut</a>. The Colorado&nbsp;and Connecticut organizations then spent millions airing TV ads in their states’ respective gubernatorial contests.</p>
<p>“It’s name branding,” Noble said. “If you were a teacher and you see an ad from a teachers union, you’re going to give it a lot more credibility than an ad from the DGA.”</p>
<p><strong>Diverse giving becomes trendy</strong></p>
<p>All but a handful of the top 50&nbsp;<a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/01/28/16619/who-tried-buy-2014-state-elections">mega-donors</a>&nbsp;used more than one avenue to spread their gifts. And most gave money to influence races in more than one state.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Billionaire hedge-fund manager Kenneth Griffin, for example, gave more than $4.6 million before the election to the campaign committee of Rauner, the Illinois Republican gubernatorial candidate, according to data from the <a href="http://www.followthemoney.org">National Institute on Money in State Politics</a>.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Worth about $5.5 billion, according to&nbsp;<a href="http://www.forbes.com/profile/ken-griffin/">Forbes</a>, Griffin and his soon-to-be ex-wife Anne also gave at least $2.2 million to independent political groups that backed state candidates, such as the Republican Governors Association, and more than $500,000 to state GOP parties in Illinois and Florida.</p>
<p>A representative for Griffin declined to comment.</p>
<p>Some of the top donors also gave widely. Sixteen of the top 50 contributors gave to 50 or more state-level candidates running in 2014.</p>
<p><strong>Getting what they paid for</strong></p>
<p>Nearly 85 percent of the candidates backed directly by the top 50 donors won their elections in 2014, &nbsp;a far better success rate than the typical political contributor, who backed winners only 52 percent of the time.</p>
<p>Duke Energy, for example, had a 94 percent success rate after supporting 381 different candidates. &nbsp;</p>
<p>For <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/01/28/16619/who-tried-buy-2014-state-elections#category/business-trade-group">corporations</a>, in particular, political giving is a way to ensure a seat at the table once a lawmaker is elected, said Loyola Law School Professor&nbsp;<a href="http://www.lls.edu/aboutus/facultyadministration/faculty/facultylistl-r/levittjustin/">Justin Levitt</a>. Giving across the aisle improves their odds of having an ally in office come January.</p>
<p>“They’ll give to the incumbent and also the challenger just in case the challenger wins,” Levitt said. “They’ll give more to leadership positions because leadership positions are gateways to access for committees, for legislation, for broader regulation.”</p>
<p>Mass media giant Comcast picked winners in 93 percent of the more than 1,000 candidates it backed. It gave nearly $1.7 million directly to candidates, spreading it widely in 36 states.&nbsp;</p>
<p>“The contributions that the company makes are because we operate in a highly regulated industry,” said Comcast spokeswoman Sena Fitzmaurice, adding that most candidates backed are incumbents. “The decisions that are made by legislatures control our business.”</p>
<p>In addition to its national giving, the Philadelphia-based Comcast gave heavily in its&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/pennsylvania">home state</a>. Top recipients were Gov. Tom Corbett and running mate Jim Cawley, both Republicans, who together raked in $107,000 from the state’s top broadband provider but lost re-election. Hedging its bet, Comcast also gave $1,000 to Wolf, who won the governorship from Corbett.</p>
<p>Duke Energy, another company regulated by states, divvied up more than $500,000 among the hundreds of candidates it backed, many of whom ran for office in&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/north-carolina">North Carolina</a>, where the company is headquartered.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Additionally, the electric utility donated more than $210,000 to the Republican Party of&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/florida">Florida</a>, according to the <a href="http://www.followthemoney.org/">National Institute on Money in State Politics</a>. &nbsp;Duke Energy may have been trying to boost its support in the Sunshine State, where it has faced massive criticism for charging customer fees for nuclear plants that do not — and may never — provide power. Florida’s governor and legislature are responsible for naming the members of the commission that regulates the utility and allows such fees.&nbsp;</p>
<p>"We do not make contribution decisions on single issues,” Duke Energy spokesman Chad Eaton said. “Our employee-led PAC considers an array of issues before any decisions are made.”&nbsp;</p>
<p>In general, he said, Duke Energy donates to candidates who demonstrate “support for public policy issues that are important to our business, customers and communities” in the six states where it provides electricity.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, meanwhile, gave nearly $2.7 million to 568 candidates in 34 states and had a 64 percent win rate. It contributed more than half million dollars to Democrat Pat Quinn’s failed bid to retain the <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/01/28/16619/who-tried-buy-2014-state-elections#state/IL">Illinois</a> governorship, but saw more success with the $410,000 it gave to Wolf’s successful run for governor in <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/01/28/16619/who-tried-buy-2014-state-elections#state/PA">Pennsylvania</a>. In both states, the Republican opposition had supported scaling back public pensions or preventing unions from deducting union dues directly from members’ paychecks.</p>
<p>Money does not always guarantee a win, of course, and a lack of funds doesn’t necessarily foretell a loss.</p>
<p>In&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/maryland">Maryland</a>’s governor’s race, former Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, a Democrat, outraised Republican Larry Hogan&nbsp;<a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/politics/campaign-2014/bs-md-governor-20141105-story.html#page=1">several times over</a>&nbsp;yet lost in one of the biggest upsets of election night. Brown was hurt by low popularity ratings that no giant war chest could fix, according to Todd Eberly, a political science professor at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. And because Hogan accepted public funds for his campaign, he was limited on how much money he could spend yet also freed up to spend time on the campaign trail, not the fundraising one.</p>
<p>And some of the top benefactors saw little return on their campaign investments.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Billionaire physicist Charles Munger Jr., son of the Berkshire Hathaway executive of the same name, gave nearly $300,000 to 45 Republican candidates in 2014. Only 13 won for a 29 percent success rate.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The nation’s largest teachers union, the National Education Association, also fared poorly when backing candidates directly — only three of their 13 candidates won.&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>Allies in office</strong></p>
<p>Most of the more than 6,300 state officials elected in November began work this month, shaping and creating policy across the country in 50 governors’ mansions and 99 legislative chambers — 11 of which flipped from Democratic to Republican control in the 2014 election.&nbsp;</p>
<p>For some big donors, that means the candidates they backed can now fight for their causes in state office. Or they might just be more willing to take a phone call from a benefactor who has a legislative wish list.</p>
<p>Noble said candidates typically know which donors they have to thank for their success — even when patrons filter their donations through independent groups.&nbsp;</p>
<p>And now, for some top givers, the real campaigning is about to begin.</p>
<p>Rauner, the newly sworn-in Republican governor, for one, is already gearing up for battles with the veto-proof Democratic-controlled legislature in&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/illinois">Illinois</a>&nbsp;as he pushes his stated goals of plugging the state’s budget deficit and strengthening ethics laws. He isn’t just counting on good will or smooth talking to win over potentially reluctant legislators. He’s counting on cold, hard cash to help make the case.</p>
<p>Rauner and two top donors, Griffin and shipping supply magnate Richard Uihlein, poured $20 million into the governor’s campaign committee in the final two days of 2014, which Rauner&nbsp;<a href="http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20141231/BLOGS02/141239968/rauner-creates-20-million-war-chest-to-push-his-agenda">reportedly</a>&nbsp;plans to use to back other candidates who support his policies.</p>
<p>Rauner’s new war chest will enable the new governor to be in a state of “perpetual campaign” — to air commercials aimed at persuading state legislators or to donate to other lawmakers’ re-election campaigns in exchange for support of Rauner’s agenda, said&nbsp;<a href="http://igpa.uillinois.edu/person/christopher-z-mooney">Christopher Mooney</a>, director of the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois, Springfield.</p>
<p>In the past, a governor might have promised state legislators financial backing for development projects in their districts or helped them acquire contracts or new jobs.</p>
<p>“Instead of building somebody a playground in the school, he'll be able to donate money to their campaign,” Mooney said.&nbsp;</p>
<p>And if they don’t do want he wants? “He'll be able to fund an opponent,” he said.</p>
Former chairman of the Republican Governors Association N.J. Gov.&nbsp;Chris Christie makes his way through a crowd in Johnston, Rhode Island, while campaigning for Rhode Island Republican gubernatorial candidate Allan Fung in October 2014.&nbsp;
Ben Wiederhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/ben-wiederKytja Weirhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/kytja-weirReity O'Brienhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/reity-obrienRachel Bayehttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/rachel-bayeHigh court appears divided over whether judicial candidates can ask for cashhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/node/16634U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments over rights of judges to seek contributions; case could undo limits in 30 statesInjudicious speech?Conservatism in the United States;United States courts of appeals;Antonin Scalia;Supreme Court of the United States;Sonia Sotomayor;Law_Crime;Stephen Breyer;Federal Election Commission;Samuel Alito;Clarence Thomas;Ruth Bader Ginsburg;John Roberts2015-01-20T18:02:18-05:002015-01-20T17:58:00-05:00<p>The U.S. Supreme Court appeared to be divided on Tuesday&nbsp;over whether elected judges should be allowed to directly solicit campaign contributions in the latest <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/01/19/16625/us-supreme-court-rule-judicial-campaign-contributions">campaign finance case</a>&nbsp;to come before the high court.</p>
<p>Central to the case, <em><a href="http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/decisions/2014/sc11-265.pdf">Williams-Yulee v. The Florida Bar</a></em>, is the question of whether Florida’s ban on judicial candidates from personally soliciting contributions is a lawful infringement on their free speech rights. If the court strikes down the ban, the decision could upend similar limits in 29 other states.</p>
<p>Proponents of the ban argue it protects the judiciary against quid pro quo exchanges between judges and the lawyers and litigants who donate to their campaigns, then appear before them in court.</p>
<p>Critics suggest that in the 39 states that elect judges, judicial candidates should be given the same free speech protections as candidates for <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/state-ad-wars-tracker">legislative and executive offices</a> where such personal pleas for assistance are standard.</p>
<p>The case stems from the 2009 campaign of Lanell Williams-Yulee, who signed a mass-mailed letter asking for contributions as she sought a county court judgeship. The Florida Supreme Court disciplined her with a reprimand and fine after The Florida Bar argued that her letter violated the state judiciary’s personal solicitation ban.</p>
<p>A majority of the justices seemed to agree that personal solicitations from judges and judicial candidates had a greater impact than financial requests from a separate campaign committee — an argument that may favor limiting what judges can do.</p>
<p>“When the judge says, ‘Can you please [give money to my campaign]?’ the answer is yes,” Justice Stephen Breyer said. “And if it’s the campaign manager, perhaps the answer is ‘no.’”</p>
<p>Representing Williams-Yulee, Andrew Pincus argued Florida’s ban amounted to hairsplitting. Thank-you notes from judges to donors, for example, are permissible.</p>
<p>“Once Florida says thank-you notes are okay, it can’t ban solicitations,” said Pincus.</p>
<p>However Breyer appeared to disagree. Writing a thank-you note, Breyer said, did not “put pressure” on an individual to the same degree as the initial ask for funding.</p>
<p>Pincus argued that Florida’s $1,000 contribution limit to candidates is an adequate protection against the type of corruption that could result from a judge directly asking a donor for money.</p>
<p>On the other side, Barry Richard, arguing for The Florida Bar, said that the Florida ban provides a vital block to the “direct link that threatens quid pro quo corruption,” coercion and judicial impartiality.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Richard said the law did not significantly impede judicial candidates’ First Amendment rights. The only speech restriction judicial candidates face, Richard said, was that the law says: “You can’t say to me, ‘Give me money.’”</p>
<p>Justices Breyer, Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg appeared sympathetic to the state’s efforts to insulate judicial candidates from the influence-peddling faced by candidates for legislative and executive offices.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Justices Samuel Alito, John Roberts and Antonin Scalia appeared sympathetic to the First Amendment arguments presented on behalf of Williams-Yulee. Justice Clarence Thomas, a member of the court’s more conservative-leaning bloc, did not ask any questions during oral arguments.</p>
<p>Roberts said that The Florida Bar was “under a great burden” to make its case without compromising the First Amendment.</p>
<p>Scalia also suggested that if lawyers were among the largest donors to judicial candidates that didn’t necessarily show corruption. Lawyers’ tendency to give in judicial races could show that “lawyers care more about electing good judges than the average citizen.”</p>
<p>Justice Anthony Kennedy, who could become the swing vote, also appeared to support that side.</p>
<p>Though at one point in the proceedings, Kennedy challenged Pincus for conceding to Ginsburg that a rule banning face-to-face solicitations — a more specific prohibition than the Florida code in question — would be valid under the First Amendment.</p>
<p>“It seems to me when you make the initial concession, you have a real problem in determining how to make this not over- or under-inclusive.”</p>
<p>A decision is not expected until spring at the earliest.</p>
<p><em>Michael Beckel contributed to this story.</em></p>
Reity O'Brienhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/reity-obrienU.S. Supreme Court to rule on judicial campaign contributionshttp://www.publicintegrity.org/node/16625Florida free speech case before U.S. Supreme Court could overturn 30 states&#039; bans on judicial candidates asking for campaign donations.Free speech or bias?Conservatism in the United States;United States courts of appeals;Antonin Scalia;Supreme Court of the United States;Law_Crime;Federal Election Commission;United States Constitution;Clarence Thomas;Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission;John Roberts;State court;Republican Party of Minnesota v. White2015-01-19T09:26:12-05:002015-01-19T05:00:00-05:00<p>The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Tuesday in a case that could undo state laws around the country that limit judicial candidates from asking potential donors for campaign contributions.</p>
<p>The Florida case, <em><a href="http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/decisions/2014/sc11-265.pdf">Williams-Yulee v. The Florida Bar</a></em>, stems from a 6-year-old ethics violation in a county court race that predated the high court’s 2010 <em><a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/01/03/7782/big-bucks-flood-2012-election-what-courts-said-and-why-we-should-care">Citizens United</a></em> decision, which, along with a handful of other rulings, have upended many traditional limits on money in politics.</p>
<p>Unlike federal judges, who are appointed to lifetime tenure by the president, voters in Florida and 38 other states elect judges. Thirty of those states limit judicial candidates’ ability to personally <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/22/15734/whos-calling-shots-states">raise money for their campaigns</a>. Instead, “the ask” must come from a separate campaign committee, a system designed to insulate judges from bias toward the lawyers and litigants who donate — or choose not to — and then come before them in court.</p>
<p>At the heart of the case is the 2009 campaign of Lanell Williams-Yulee, who signed a mass-mailed letter asking for contributions as she sought a Hillsborough County trial court judgeship. The Florida Supreme Court disciplined her with a public reprimand and a $1,860 fine after The Florida Bar argued that her letter violated the state judiciary’s personal solicitation ban.&nbsp; Now, Williams-Yulee brings the case to the U.S. Supreme Court to argue the ban infringed on her free speech.</p>
<p>If the court rules in favor of Williams-Yulee, her <a href="http://www.floridabar.org/wps/portal/flbar/home/attysearch/mprofile/!ut/p/a1/jc_LDoIwEAXQT-pthRaWo6mkRazxgdCNYUWaKLowfr_42LioOrtJzs3cYZ41zA_dLfTdNZyH7vjYvTxACM3dBrawxEHlOl3ZqgSEHEE7girnxJMMNktoDlOr2qgtF7RM_8sjMoRf-T3zn8RJNQO5BXKtp0AxeYNIRTj-HTx_eJ2Il7ycdg2C6e8_WXgh/dl5/d5/L2dBISEvZ0FBIS9nQSEh/?mid=882010">disciplinary record</a> with <a href="http://www.floridabar.org/">The Florida Bar</a> will be wiped clean, according to her attorney Ernest Myers. Yet the court’s decision may be more far-reaching: if it finds the <a href="http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/decisions/ethics/canon7.shtml">Florida ban</a> unconstitutional, Myers said, the bans in states with similar rules will likely be invalidated.</p>
<p>“It’s a blanket prohibition on speech, including some speech which is fairly innocuous and probably doesn’t rise to the level of the concerns that were the reasons it was put in place to begin with,” Myers said.</p>
<p>Proponents of the ban fear such a ruling could mean judicial candidates in Florida and 29 other states may find themselves directly asking the lawyers and corporate executives who appear before them in court for cash ahead of each election cycle.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Williams-Yulee’s fundraising letter failed to yield any contributions. She also lost the election, and never sat on the bench, making the case an imperfect test of whether asking for campaign contributions threatens a judge’s impartiality.</p>
<p>So, why did the court even take the case?</p>
<p>Six lower federal circuit courts and four state courts are split on the constitutionality of such bans. Williams-Yulee’s opponent, The Florida Bar, even <a href="http://sblog.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/13-1499-The-Florida-Bars-Response-to-Petition-for-Writ-of-Certiorari.pdf">urged the court</a> to accept the case and resolve this clash.</p>
<p>The high court’s recent campaign finance decisions suggest that Williams-Yulee could win inside the marble-columned, frescoed walls of One First Street, making it even easier for judicial candidates around the country to pad their campaign coffers.</p>
<p>Judicial elections — once sleepy contests removed from the blood sport of politicking —&nbsp;have become multi-million dollar contests in recent election cycles.</p>
<p>State supreme court candidates attracted at least $18 million in contributions during the 2014 election cycle, according to a <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/">Center for Public Integrity</a> analysis of available state data collected by the <a href="http://www.followthemoney.org/">National Institute on Money in State Politics</a>.</p>
<p>Candidates for state high courts spent at least $5.2 million on <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/state-ad-wars-tracker">television ads</a>, with <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/michigan">Michigan</a> candidate Richard Bernstein spending an estimated $1.3 million for his successful election campaign, according to the Center for Public Integrity’s analysis of data from media tracking firm Kantar Media/CMAG.</p>
<p>The Florida rule in question only narrowly limits candidates’ speech, according to Matthew Menendez, a lawyer for the <a href="http://www.brennancenter.org/">Brennan Center for Justice</a>, a think tank that filed a brief supporting the ban. Judicial candidates may still discuss their credentials and legal philosophy and send thank-you notes to donors, he said.</p>
<p>“The only thing a judge can’t say is ‘Please give me money,’” Menendez said.</p>
<p>But in a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/aclu_amicus_brief_3.pdf">friend-of-the-court brief</a>, the <a href="https://www.aclu.org/">American Civil Liberties Union</a> wrote that “campaign speech by candidates for judicial office, like campaign speech by candidates for other offices, is entitled to the highest degree of First Amendment protection.”</p>
<p>Such a view was underscored by Justice Antonin Scalia’s&nbsp;<a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/pdf/01-521P.ZO">majority opinion</a>&nbsp;in the 2002 ruling on <em>The Republican Party of Minnesota v. White</em>, which allowed judicial candidates to publicly share their opinions on controversial legal and political matters.</p>
<p>Justice Anthony Kennedy will likely be the swing vote in this case, said <a href="http://law.vanderbilt.edu/bio/tracey-george">Tracey George</a>, a professor at Vanderbilt Law School who studies the effect of campaign contributions on judicial decision-making. Though the court’s decision is likely months away, she predicts Kennedy will join the four conservative justices — Scalia, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts and Samuel Alito — to find the Florida code unconstitutional. &nbsp;</p>
<p>Such a ruling would be an additional incremental push by the court’s majority toward campaign finance deregulation, George said. The decisions in the 2010&nbsp;<em><a href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-205.pdf">Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission</a></em>&nbsp;and 2014&nbsp;<em><a href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-536_e1pf.pdf">McCutcheon v. FEC</a></em>&nbsp;cases&nbsp;expanded freedoms for donors to give to candidates, parties and outside groups in elections.</p>
<p>Ed Whelan, a former clerk to Justice Scalia and director of the conservative&nbsp;<a href="http://eppc.org/">Ethics &amp; Public Policy Center</a>, said it’s possible that the court could leave the First Amendment question unresolved yet decide that Williams-Yulee did not actually violate Florida’s ban. The mass mailing was a decidedly impersonal solicitation and did not yield contributions, let alone the quid pro quo exchanges that judicial campaign donations may invite.</p>
<p>It’s also possible the court could dismiss the case entirely, Whelan said. However, he noted, the court takes on cases “to resolve these grander issues, not to engage in error correction.”</p>
Supreme Court is seen in Washington, D.C., April 2010.
Reity O'Brienhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/reity-obrienSecretive nonprofits flourished — and succeeded — in 2014 state electionshttp://www.publicintegrity.org/node/16516Nonprofits backed winning candidates, or bashed losers, in 63 percent of the state races in which they sponsored ads. Secret money winsPolitics;Fundraising;Federal Election Commission;Political action committee;Lobbying in the United States;Attack ad;Campaign advertising;United States Chamber of Commerce;Nonprofit organization;Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission;Law Enforcement Alliance of America2014-12-17T07:52:03-05:002014-12-17T06:00:00-05:00<p>Sandra Kennedy expected a tough race this fall for a seat on the Arizona Corporation Commission, but the Democrat didn’t expect to get socked with a $1.4 million onslaught of TV ads from a mysterious group that dredged up a past legal dispute.</p>
<p>The race for a seat on the commission to regulate utilities and other businesses rarely attracts campaign ads. Kennedy herself hadn’t purchased any. The group called <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/save-our-future-now">Save Our Future Now</a>, however, flooded the state’s airwaves with ads running nearly 1,400 times.</p>
<p>“Times are tough in <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/arizona">Arizona</a>, but Sandra Kennedy voted to hurt Arizona families. Kennedy voted for higher sales taxes, but she didn’t even pay her own bills,” one ad said. “Kennedy owned a restaurant chain and didn’t pay the rent.”</p>
<p>The ad referenced a royalty infringement suit involving Kennedy and restaurant chain Denny’s Inc. over a franchise that she and her husband owned. Both parties settled the case in 2010.</p>
<p>“It was devastating,” Kennedy said of the ads. “Unbelievable.”&nbsp;</p>
<p>State and federal law do not require the group to publicly disclose its funders because such politicking is not the group’s “primary purpose.” &nbsp;So it’s nearly impossible for Kennedy or other Arizonans to prove who funded the attack ads that helped lead to her loss in November. The group, based in Phoenix, did not respond to the <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/">Center for Public Integrity</a> for comment.</p>
<p>Save Our Future Now is just one of 40 nonprofit groups that together spent an estimated $25 million to buy TV ads about 2014 state-level elections while keeping their donors secret, according to a Center for Public Integrity <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/state-ad-wars-tracker">analysis</a> of data from media tracking service Kantar Media/CMAG.</p>
<p>That’s a small piece of the more than $850 million spent on TV ads in all state elections overall in the 2014 cycle. However, the number of ads from such groups — and the proportion they made up in political advertising for state contests — nearly doubled from levels in 2010, the last year in which a comparable number of state-level offices were in play.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Such groups often appeared to have outsized influence on races from governor down to state senator this cycle. Most of them were successful, far more so than independent political groups overall: these secretive nonprofits either backed a winning candidate or, in the majority of cases, bashed the loser in 63 percent of the races in which they sponsored TV ads tracked by Kantar Media/CMAG. By comparison, all independent groups, including those that disclose their donors, were successful just under 50 percent of the time.&nbsp;</p>
<p>And overall 51 percent of election advertisers, including candidates and political parties, on the state level were successful, according to the Center for Public Integrity’s analysis.</p>
<p><strong><em>Citizens United’s</em>&nbsp;impact</strong></p>
<p>In 24 states including Arizona — where nearly one out of every seven ads was sponsored by such entities — these mysterious groups were boosted by the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court’s&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/10/18/11527/citizens-united-decision-and-why-it-matters"><em>Citizens United</em>&nbsp;ruling</a>. The high court’s 5-4 decision freed corporations and unions to spend limitlessly to directly advocate for the victory or defeat of candidates.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The ruling unleashed a wave of “social welfare” nonprofit corporations, which are supposed to spend the majority of the donations they receive to&nbsp;<a href="http://www.irs.gov/Charities-&amp;-Non-Profits/Other-Non-Profits/Social-Welfare-Organizations">promote “social welfare,” not politics</a>.</p>
<p>Attempts by the Internal Revenue Service to&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/07/15/15035/hobbled-irs-cant-stem-dark-money-flow">regulate tax-exempt groups</a>&nbsp;— and allegations that the agency targeted conservative groups with its audits — resulted in the 2013 resignation of Lois Lerner, the director of that portion of the IRS.&nbsp;</p>
<p>To be sure, such “social welfare” nonprofits and other nonprofits that function as trade associations are not the only groups that sometimes can keep their donors secret. &nbsp;Lax disclosure rules in some states allow other types of groups to avoid registering with state election boards at all.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Or sometimes groups can hide their donors from voters with lags in filing deadlines. In Kansas, a state where a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/kansas">tight governor’s race</a>&nbsp;attracted more ads from such mysterious groups than in any other state, a nonprofit called&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/alliance-for-a-free-society-inc">Alliance for a Free Society Inc.</a>, ran ads against Democratic nominee Paul Davis, who lost to incumbent Republican Gov. Sam Brownback.</p>
<p>The group incorporated in Delaware only in July, so detailed information about its leadership, lobbying and political activity will not be released by the IRS until 2015 — months after Kansas voters saw the anti-Davis ads and cast ballots. Michael K. Morgan, a top government affairs consultant to Koch Industries who runs the group, declined to be interviewed by the Center for Public Integrity on the record.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Some conservatives, including&nbsp;<a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-205.ZX1.html">Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas</a>, have argued that keeping donors secret is constitutionally protected anonymous political speech. And they have spent millions of dollars in recent years fighting the notion that social welfare groups and trade associations should disclose the source of money used for politics.&nbsp;</p>
<p>These groups lend a “comfort level” to individual and corporate donors who want to influence state politics without giving up their identity, according to David Vance, a spokesman for the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.campaignlegalcenter.org/">Campaign Legal Center</a>, which advocates for tighter campaign finance regulation.</p>
<p>“The 501(c)(4)s and the 501(c)(6)s represent a way for anyone, but particularly corporations, to kind of fly under the radar and make an impact,” said Vance, referencing the sections of the Internal Revenue Code that regulate politically active nonprofits. “They can have a lot more impact at the state level than on the federal level.”</p>
<p><strong>Cease and desist</strong></p>
<p>In&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/wisconsin">Wisconsin</a>, where a competitive gubernatorial race helped attract more than $4 million dollars in ads from such politically active nonprofits, two groups spent more than $350,000 combined attacking Penny Bernard Schaber, a 61-year-old physical therapist and longtime Democratic assemblywoman running for state Senate.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The ads started early, just after Labor Day, and painted her as a tax-and-spend liberal. They claimed that she took a pay raise while raising taxes for others.</p>
<p>Bernard Schaber sent a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1381624-john-peterson-letter-re-wmc-ad0001.html">cease-and-desist letter</a>&nbsp;to local TV stations demanding that they stop airing the ads because they were “factually untrue.” A legislative committee had voted to raise legislators’ pay to $49,943 before she was elected; her pay never rose while she was in office.&nbsp;</p>
<p>But the groups&nbsp;<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1381623-wmcschaberadresponsepdf.html">countered</a>&nbsp;that the&nbsp;<em>Wisconsin State Journal</em>&nbsp;newspaper first published the statements in an&nbsp;<a href="http://host.madison.com/news/opinion/editorial/nays-to-pay-raise/article_6a63b3bd-9db2-5031-80c0-209bdcfe6aeb.html">editorial</a>, noting that some legislators had declined to accept the increase. The ads continued.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The two organizations that paid for the ads, which ran nearly 750 times, were the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/wmc-issues-mobilization-council">Wisconsin Manufacturing and Commerce Issues Mobilization Council</a>&nbsp;and the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/first-amendment-alliance-educational-fund">First Amendment Alliance Educational Fund</a>.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Because the ads didn’t specifically advocate for Bernard Schaber’s defeat, the groups didn’t have to disclose what they had spent — or the source of their funding — to the state’s ethics board, which regulates campaign finance.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The Wisconsin Manufacturing and Commerce Issues Mobilization Council is a state-based group that is affiliated with the state&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wmc.org/about/">chamber of commerce</a>.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The First Amendment Alliance Educational Fund, though, is a Virginia-based group that ran ads within Wisconsin only on her race. It says on its&nbsp;<a href="http://www.firstamendmentallianceeducationalfund.com/">website</a>&nbsp;it is “dedicated to educating Americans on transparency, waste, fraud, hypocrisy and best practices at all levels of government.” Its donors, and its interest in Wisconsin state Senate District 19, are not transparent.</p>
<p>Representatives of both groups did not respond to the Center for Public Integrity’s request for comment.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Bernard Schaber lost, largely she believes due to the campaigns by those groups. And those behind the attacks remain largely unknown.</p>
<p>“That’s what makes it hard for the general public. They don’t pay attention to who is saying it,” she said. “They pay attention to the message.”</p>
<p><strong>Leaving no footprints</strong></p>
<p>Groups can drop in from afar, and then essentially disappear as they did in some state supreme court races.</p>
<p>At least four mysterious groups targeted candidates for state judicial races — contests historically removed from political blood sport. Such secretive spending is especially concerning within the judicial community because donors could come before a judge whom their dollars helped elect.&nbsp;</p>
<p>In&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/arkansas">Arkansas</a>, a group called the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/law-enforcement-alliance-of-america">Law Enforcement Alliance of America</a>&nbsp;spent more than $160,000 to air three ads aimed at influencing the nonpartisan race for state Supreme Court. Such third-party spending was unprecedented in an Arkansas Supreme Court election.</p>
<p>One ad claimed that candidate Tim Cullen had called child pornography a “victimless crime.”&nbsp;</p>
<p>Cullen wrote that phrase in a&nbsp;<a href="http://posting.arktimes.com/media/pdf/opening_brief.pdf">2006 brief</a>&nbsp;while representing a sex offender who was appealing his sentence. However, Cullen said he was referring to his client’s conviction for enticing a minor — not the child pornography charge mentioned in the ad — and that he characterized that crime as “victimless” because his client engaged in sexually explicit Internet chat-room conversations with undercover police officers pretending to be young girls.</p>
<p>Cullen has repeatedly said the ad’s claims were false, and at the time, his campaign countered with an ad that aimed to exonerate him. But by the time of the election in May, Cullen was outspent, and he blamed his 4-percentage-point loss to Robin Wynne on the LEAA’s ads.</p>
<p>The LEAA, a Virginia-based nonprofit, does not have to publicly reveal its donors, nor is it required to file campaign finance reports with the Arkansas secretary of state. In the past, the group has been backed by the National Rifle Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, though neither group has reported grants to the LEAA on recent years’ tax returns.</p>
<p>The LEAA has not made available its own tax returns from the past two years, keeping the public in the dark about the groups’ leadership and any of its recent donations to other organizations. Nor have representatives from the group responded to the Center for Public Integrity’s repeated requests for comment.</p>
<p>Cullen said he was troubled by the attack and pointed to the conflicts of interest such secretive support could create for elected judges in state courts.</p>
<p>“We don’t know where the money came from, so we don’t know when to ask Justice Robin Wynne who his benefactors are,” he said.</p>
<p><strong>Following the disclosure trail of crumbs</strong></p>
<p>Though the groups don’t have to report their donors, sometimes clues can be gleaned from other public records.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Very often the donors to a nonprofit are other nonprofits, which are required to reveal their contributions. Or publicly traded corporations may voluntarily&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/01/16/14107/top-us-corporations-funneled-173-million-political-nonprofits">disclose donations</a>&nbsp;in their corporate filings.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/ohio">Ohio</a>’s Supreme Court race attracted nearly $600,000 in TV ads from the ambiguously named Washington, D.C.-based&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/american-freedom-builders">American Freedom Builders</a>. In one of the few positive ads aired by political nonprofits, the group supported Republican Justice Judi French’s successful re-election to Ohio’s high court.</p>
<p>Like the LEAA, little is known about who funds American Freedom Builders. However a&nbsp;<a href="http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/RAI/3152201550x0x735695/82c87872-4692-4847-8bd6-09a3d0a67169/2013_Corporate_Contributions_to_Organization.pdf">document</a>&nbsp;released by Reynolds American earlier this year shows the tobacco giant donated $15,000 to the group in 2013, as the Center for Public Integrity has previously&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/05/09/14746/tobacco-money-fuels-gay-republicans-business-organizations">reported</a>.&nbsp;</p>
<p>This debate has reached a fever pitch in&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/arizona">Arizona</a>, a breeding ground for some of the country’s most prolific political nonprofits. The secretary of state audited politically active nonprofits in July, including the group that attacked Kennedy in the corporation commission race, to make sure they met the state’s “social welfare” requirement as a nonprofit. Yet earlier this month, a federal judge threw out a provision in the state’s campaign finance law that required all other political committees to disclose their donors.</p>
<p>Kennedy believes the group that purchased the ads, Save Our Future Now, was financed by Arizona Public Service — the state’s largest electricity utility, which is regulated by the commission. &nbsp;She has advocated for solar energy tax incentives opposed by the utility.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The utility told the Center for Public Integrity it supports candidates and causes that are “pro-business and supportive of a sustainable energy future for Arizona,” but the utility declined to disclose specific political contributions or answer questions about alleged ties to Save Our Future Now.</p>
<p>Kennedy, devastated by the Save Our Future Now attack ads, said she’s hesitant to run for office again. She’s stopped reading newspapers or watching television and said her consulting business has been hurt by the bad press. Politics has strained her family life, too. &nbsp;A classmate of Kennedy’s 16-year-old daughter bullied her about the group’s accusations, she said.</p>
<p>“I think it’s a deterrent for other good people who want to serve,” she said. “Why would I put myself and my family through it again?"</p>
<p><em>Rachel Baye, Kytja Weir and Ben Wieder contributed to this story.</em></p>
Screenshot from an ad paid for by Save Our Future Now. Ads paid for by the group, a nonprofit that does not need to disclose its donors, aired nearly 1,400 times in Arizona during the 2014 election cycle.
Reity O'Brienhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/reity-obrienNearly 100,000 negative ads helped turn tide in Florida electionshttp://www.publicintegrity.org/node/16274Battles over the U.S. Senate and governorships dominated TV commercial breaks.Ad wars at a glanceTechnology_Internet;WPP Group2014-11-14T13:27:20-05:002014-11-14T11:40:00-05:00<p><em>The 2014 election is over </em><span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:ff-tisa-web-pro,helvetica neue,helvetica,arial,sans-serif; font-size:16px">— </span><em>in nearly every race </em><span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:ff-tisa-web-pro,helvetica neue,helvetica,arial,sans-serif; font-size:16px">— </span><em>and voters can now turn on their televisions without being inundated with political ads. Here’s a tally of how the TV ad wars played out, according to a <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/">Center for Public Integrity</a> analysis of preliminary data from media tracking firm Kantar Media/CMAG.</em></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>The big numbers: </strong>More than 1 million TV ads aired for <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/02/15447/whos-buying-senate">U.S. Senate</a> races, while more than 1.4 million ads ran about <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/state-ad-wars-tracker">state-level</a>&nbsp;races.<br />
&nbsp;</li>
<li><strong>Thirty-six races on two stages:</strong> Ads for the 36 governorships at stake cost an estimated $583 million, while ads for the 36 U.S. Senate seats cost an estimated $477 million in airtime.<br />
&nbsp;</li>
<li><strong>Hottest TV ad war:</strong> The most expensive race overall was <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/florida" style="line-height: 20.7999992370605px;">Florida</a> governor’s contest at $98 million, with ads supporting Republican Gov. Rick Scott outnumbering ads supporting Democratic nominee Charlie Crist and his running mate by almost 2-to-1.<br />
&nbsp;</li>
<li><strong>Most negative state:</strong> <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/florida">Florida</a> also had the most negative ads in the nation, with more than 96,600 airings of attack ads — more than the total number of political ads that ran in 39 states. <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/north-carolina">North Carolina</a> came in second with more than 89,200 negative ads, mostly in the <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/02/15447/whos-buying-senate#NC">U.S. Senate race</a> in which Republican Thom Tillis ousted Sen. Kay Hagan, a Democrat.<br />
&nbsp;</li>
<li><strong>Hottest U.S. Senate races</strong>: Six U.S. Senate battlegrounds accounted for more than half of all U.S. Senate-focused TV advertising. <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/02/15447/whos-buying-senate#NC">North Carolina</a> had 114,300 ads, followed by <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/02/15447/whos-buying-senate#IA">Iowa</a> (where 97,500 ads aired), <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/02/15447/whos-buying-senate#KY">Kentucky</a> (88,300), <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/02/15447/whos-buying-senate#LA">Louisiana</a> (78,100), <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/02/15447/whos-buying-senate#GA">Georgia</a> (75,300) and <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/02/15447/whos-buying-senate#CO">Colorado</a> (67,400). Republican candidates prevailed in five out of six of these states. The sixth — Louisiana — won’t be decided until a Dec. 6 runoff between Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu and Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy. Ads <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/11/13/16273/slow-start-landrieus-runoff-campaign">continue</a> to run there.<br />
&nbsp;</li>
<li><strong>Bigfoot ballot measures:</strong> With an estimated $107.5 million in TV ads, more was spent on the airwaves for <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/california#ballot-measures">California’s six statewide ballot measures</a> than on any single elective office in the country. That was more than half of the <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/10/22/16001/state-ballot-measures-tracker">$204 million</a> spent buying airtime for the 158 statewide ballot measures nationwide. Another $20.7 million was spent on local measures around the country.<br />
&nbsp;</li>
<li><strong>Most airtime:</strong> The candidates whose campaigns bought the most ad spots were: <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/texas">Texas</a> gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott (45,600 spots), <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/illinois">Illinois</a> gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner (40,600), <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/02/15447/whos-buying-senate#LA">Louisiana’s</a> Landrieu (29,200), <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/illinois">Illinois</a> Gov. Pat Quinn (27,500) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/02/15447/whos-buying-senate#KY">Ky.</a>, who aired about 25,600 ads. Only Quinn lost; Landrieu’s race has not been decided.<br />
&nbsp;</li>
<li><strong>Campaigns still dominate:</strong> Senate candidates were solely responsible for about <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/02/15447/whos-buying-senate" style="line-height: 20.7999992370605px;">52 percent</a> of all U.S. Senate-focused TV ads, while state-level candidates were responsible for <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/state-ad-wars-tracker">two-thirds of ads</a>. Political parties accounted for less than 14 percent.<br />
&nbsp;</li>
<li><strong>Outsiders chime in</strong>: In U.S. Senate races about <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/02/15447/whos-buying-senate">37 percent</a> of the ads were sponsored by non-party groups, such as political action committees, trade associations, unions, super PACs and other politically active organizations. On state-level races, such groups bought about <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/22/15623/state-ad-wars-tracker">20 percent</a> of the ads, far more than the nearly 13 percent in 2010.<br />
&nbsp;</li>
<li><strong>Secretive groups on the rise</strong>: In six of the hottest U.S. Senate races, groups that do not disclose their donors accounted for <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/11/05/16218/dark-money-funded-tv-ads-senate-races">at least one of every five TV ads</a>. And three of the <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/11/04/16210/top-10-non-party-groups-airing-ads-senate-races">top five outside groups</a> active in U.S. Senate races fell into that category: Crossroads GPS, a nonprofit co-founded by GOP strategist Karl Rove (which aired 30,900 TV ads in U.S. Senate races); Americans for Prosperity, a nonprofit supported by the conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch (28,300); and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (17,000).</li>
</ul>
<p><em>Want to know more? Explore our findings with our ad trackers for <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/22/15623/state-ad-wars-tracker" style="line-height: 1.6;">state-level offices</a>, <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/10/22/16001/state-ballot-measures-tracker">ballot measures</a> and the <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/02/15447/whos-buying-senate" style="line-height: 1.6;">U.S. Senate</a>.</em></p>
<p><strong>Source</strong>:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/">Center for Public Integrity</a> analysis of preliminary <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/24/15738/who-s-trying-influence-your-vote">data</a> through Nov. 4 from Kantar Media/CMAG.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
Florida Gov. Rick Scott stands at the podium before making a victory speech after defeating Democratic challenger, former Republican, Charlie Crist, in Bonita Springs, Fla. on Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2014.&nbsp;
Michael Beckelhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/michael-beckelReity O'Brienhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/reity-obrienKytja Weirhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/kytja-weirAd war winners take governors' mansionshttp://www.publicintegrity.org/node/16175Three out of four races won by top spending candidates and their alliesCash is king in governor racesPolitics;Negative campaigning;Florida;Charlie Crist;Newt Gingrich presidential campaign2015-01-09T11:23:02-05:002014-11-05T04:12:01-05:00<p><strong><em>Editor’s note:&nbsp;</em></strong><em>The Center for Public Integrity tracked political advertising in races for the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/02/15447/whos-buying-senate" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; color: red;" target="_blank">U.S. Senate</a>,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/22/15623/state-ad-wars-tracker" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; color: red;" target="_blank">state-level offices</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/10/22/16001/state-ballot-measures-tracker" style="color: red; box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none;">state&nbsp;ballot measures</a>. Use these three interactive features to see who was calling the shots and where the money was spent.</em></p>
<p>Nearly all of the governors elected Tuesday dominated the airwaves in TV ads before voters went to the polls, bolstered by their campaign war chests and outside groups that advertised on their behalf.</p>
<p>Candidates outspent on TV ads won in only seven of the 34 races called as of Wednesday. However, in six of those cases, the winners were incumbents, confident that they didn’t need the help of so many ads.</p>
<p>Of the nearly $550 million spent on ads targeting governors on the November ballot, nearly 60<strong>&nbsp;</strong>percent supported the winning candidates, according to a <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/state-ad-wars-tracker">Center for Public Integrity analysis</a> of preliminary data from media tracking firm Kantar Media/CMAG.</p>
<p>The spending also helped Republicans pick up four governorships, while Democrats flipped only one, leaving Republicans holding the reins in at least&nbsp;31&nbsp;states nationwide.</p>
<p>The country’s 36 governors’ races accounted for nearly 70 percent of the $832 million spent on television ads aimed at shaping the outcomes of state-level races this cycle, about $100 million more than was spent on the same number of U.S. Senate seats up for election. Only the Wyoming governorship did not have ads airing in markets captured by Kantar Media/CMAG.</p>
<p>The spending this cycle represents a 10 percent decline from 2010, when an estimated $921 million was spent on TV ads in state-level races, including $689 million on governors’ races.</p>
<p>At least 18 gubernatorial winners and supporting groups outspent their opponents by more than $1 million. In some states, such as <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/florida">Florida</a>, the successful candidates and their supporters outspent their rivals by huge margins.</p>
<p>Republican Gov. Rick Scott and the groups backing him spent $61 million — the most spent supporting any single gubernatorial candidate this cycle — compared with the $34 million spent by Democratic candidate and former Gov. Charlie Crist and his allies. The heavy spending also made the Florida contest the most expensive TV ad war in the country this election.</p>
<p>Scott and his allies spent roughly $21.50 on TV ads for every vote the governor received, according to the Associated Press’s voting totals. Crist and his allies spent nearly $12.25 on TV ads per vote in the losing effort.</p>
<p>Other top spenders included <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/illinois">Illinois</a> Republican Bruce Rauner, who, along with his allies, spent almost $21 per vote on his way to unseating Democratic incumbent Gov. Pat Quinn. Quinn and his supporters spent about $22.75 per vote.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Rauner’s biggest backer was Rauner. The candidate donated at least $26 million to his campaign, the most of any <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/10/30/16101/mega-donors-give-big-state-candidates">self-funded candidate</a> this election.</p>
<p>Meanwhile incumbent&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/new-york" style="line-height: 20.7999992370605px;">New York</a>&nbsp;Democrat Andrew Cuomo spent $14.75 for each vote in his successful bid to retain the governorship.</p>
<p>In a race that attracted a lot of national attention, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, a Republican, beat Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis handily after he outspent her on the Lone Star State’s airwaves $24 million to $15 million.</p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/pennsylvania">Pennsylvania</a>, Democrat gubernatorial candidate Tom Wolf unseated unpopular incumbent Gov. Tom Corbett, a Republican, after Wolf and his allies outspent Corbett and his supporters by nearly $10 million on the airwaves — the same margin that kitchen cabinet magnate Wolf donated to his own campaign. He was the sole Democrat to pick up a governor’s mansion.</p>
<p>However one of the biggest upsets of the night was in largely blue <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/maryland">Maryland</a>, where Republican challenger Larry Hogan beat Democratic Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown despite being outgunned on TV ads.</p>
<p>Up until <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2014/governor/md/maryland_governor_hogan_vs_brown-5098.html" style="line-height: 1.6;" target="_blank">even the last few weeks</a> of the race, Brown was expected to cruise to an easy victory. What’s more, Brown and the groups supporting him spent $13.5 million on TV ads, compared with the $5.8 million spent by Hogan and his allies.</p>
<p>Todd Eberly, a political science professor at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, said the race boiled down to what the ads said, rather than how much was spent airing them.</p>
<p>“The economy and taxes were nearly paramount in the minds of Maryland voters this year," he said. "Hogan really talked about nothing but that issue and Brown avoided it."</p>
<p>Voters likely conflated independent groups’ ads — 86 percent of which attacked Hogan, according to the Center’s analysis — with those run by Brown himself, Eberly said.</p>
<p>“To the extent that advertising registered with anyone in this election, what registered was that Brown was running a very negative campaign, and I think that hurt him,” he said.</p>
<p>Such independent groups accounted for a quarter of the television spending in governors’ races, often providing the margin that helped boost the winning candidates to victory.</p>
<p>Not counting parties or candidates themselves, the top spending independent groups were the <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/republican-governors-association">Republican Governors Association</a> ($28.5 million)&nbsp;and the <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/democratic-governors-association">Democratic Governors Association</a> ($17.2 million), national committees that spend and raise millions to elect governors from their parties. The groups also heavily contributed to other&nbsp;independent groups, that spent nearly $11 million on the Democratic side and more than $13 million on the Republican side.</p>
<p>All told, the Republican group was more successful than its Democratic counterpart; of the 21 states where the RGA or its affiliates spent money, Republicans won in 16 races.</p>
<p>By comparison, six out of the 11 Democrats backed on the airwaves by the Democratic group and its affiliates lost.</p>
<p>“It’s a Republican-leaning year, and it’s a good national trend for Republicans that is bleeding down the ballot to governors’ races,” said Kyle Kondik, a political analyst at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.</p>
<p>Two independent groups backed by billionaires had mixed results on Election Day. The environmental group NextGen Climate Action Committee, backed by billionaire Tom Steyer, helped knock out Corbett in Pennsylvania but didn’t find success in Florida or Maine where it supported Democrats.</p>
<p>Meanwhile former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Independence USA PAC, which backed political moderates, found success in Michigan, where it backed incumbent Republican Gov. Rick Snyder. &nbsp;It also won in Connecticut where incumbent Democratic Gov. Dan Malloy eked out a victory against Republican Tom Foley.&nbsp;But it struck out in Maryland, where it backed Brown, the Democrat.</p>
<p>In Florida, Scott won re-election with help from more than $10 million in ads sponsored by Let’s Get to Work, a political action committee with ties to Scott though not technically part of his campaign.</p>
<p>In fact, neither Scott nor Crist was responsible for much of the $94 million spent on airtime in the race, the most expensive in the nation. The state’s two major political parties accounted for a whopping 76 percent of the ad spending — $72 million. &nbsp;Another $17 million came from other independent groups, such as Steyer’s NextGen Climate Action Committee, the National Rifle Association and other Florida-specific political organizations.</p>
<p>In Illinois, such assistance from outside groups helped Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn nearly match Republican challenger Bruce Rauner, who tapped his wealth for his campaign.</p>
<p>Worth hundreds of millions of dollars, Rauner took advantage of a fortune made in the private equity industry to unseat the vulnerable incumbent, whose popularity was waning. Quinn fought back with help from the labor-funded <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/illinois-freedom-pac">Illinois Freedom PAC</a> to almost match Rauner’s camp, yet still lost.</p>
<p>“When one candidate starts spending a lot of money on ads, the other side says, ‘We have to match them,’ and it becomes an arms race,” said Brian Gaines, a political science professor at the University of Illinois.</p>
<p>By the day before the election, both sides had each spent just over $36 million on TV ads, making the race the second-most expensive governor’s contest.</p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/arizona">Arizona</a>, former ice cream executive Doug Ducey was buttressed by roughly $4 million in ads sponsored by outside actors, which added to the $5.7 million worth of airtime bought by his campaign. That helped the Republican dominate the airwaves and beat Democratic nominee Fred DuVal.</p>
<p>In&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/kansas" style="line-height: 1.6;" target="_blank">Kansas</a>, Sam Brownback was one of at least 15 incumbent Republican governors who won re-election. &nbsp;Aided by at least $5 million dollars in TV ads produced by outside groups, Brownback beat Democratic challenger and state legislator Paul Davis in a tight race. For his part, Davis was buoyed by more than $3.7 million in spending by outside sponsors.</p>
<p>So-called “outside spending” groups have gained significant traction since 2010, the last year in which a comparable number of governorships were in play and the first election cycle after the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/10/18/11527/citizens-united-decision-and-why-it-matters"><em>Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. FEC</em></a> ruling, which removed limits on such political spending. Groups independent of candidates and parties sponsored 25 percent of all ads in gubernatorial races this cycle, while outside organizations made up less than 13 percent in 2010.</p>
<p>And the vast majority of these ads — more than 71 percent — attacked candidates, while campaign-endorsed messages were mostly positive.</p>
<p>“Outside groups are always going to do more negative spending than candidates,” said Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. “It diffuses the blame for a negative message."</p>
<p><em><strong>Update, Nov. 5, 2014, 2:56 p.m.:</strong>&nbsp;This story has been updated to reflect results from Colorado, where the AP called the race for Democratic incumbent Gov. John Hickenlooper, and from Connecticut, where Republican candidate Tom Foley conceded the race to Gov. Dan Malloy in an&nbsp;<a href="http://www.wfsb.com/story/27287294/tom-foley-sends-thank-you-email-to-his-supporters">email</a>&nbsp;to supporters. &nbsp;</em>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong><em>Update, Nov. 9, 2015, 11:22 a.m.:</em></strong><em>&nbsp;The final governor’s race was settled on Jan. 8 when the Vermont legislature chose Gov. Peter Shumlin, the latest example of a successful gubernatorial candidate who won the TV ad wars. Read more&nbsp;</em><em><a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/01/08/16573/shumlin-re-elected-vermont-governor"><em>here</em></a></em><em>.&nbsp;</em></p>
Florida Gov. Rick Scott's campaign bus sits outside the Hyatt Regency Coconut Point Resort &amp; Spa on election night, 2014, in Bonita Springs, Fla.&nbsp;
Ben Wiederhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/ben-wiederReity O'Brienhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/reity-obrienRachel Bayehttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/rachel-bayeMega-donors give big to state candidateshttp://www.publicintegrity.org/node/16101More than two dozen donors have given at least $1 million to state-level campaigns ahead of Nov. 4.Who&#039;s joined the $1M club?Politics;Fundraising;Political action committee;Lobbying in the United States;Campaign finance;Campaign finance in the United States;Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission;Campaign finance reform in the United States2014-10-30T13:24:00-04:002014-10-30T11:00:00-04:00<p>&nbsp;At least 29 donors have given $1 million or more to state-level campaigns so far this election, with a dozen of the big givers made up of self-funding candidates, according to an analysis of campaign finance data.</p>
<p>The other big donors to state campaigns in the 2014 election include billionaires, corporate giants, unions and nonprofit political groups. Each donor has shelled out more than 19 times&nbsp;the country’s median household income.</p>
<p>According to a <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/22/15623/state-ad-wars-tracker">Center for Public Integrity</a> analysis of data collected from state records&nbsp;by the nonpartisan <a href="http://www.followthemoney.org/">National Institute on Money in State Politics</a>, top donors include:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/illinois">Illinois </a>Republican candidate Bruce Rauner, who has given more than $26 million, mostly to fund his own campaign;</li>
<li><a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/pennsylvania">Pennsylvania </a>Democrat Tom Wolf, who has used $10 million of his own money in an attempt to unseat unpopular incumbent Gov. Tom Corbett, a Republican;</li>
<li>The <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/republican-governors-association">Republican Governors Association</a>, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit&nbsp;that has given at least $9.6 million to gubernatorial candidates in at least six states;</li>
<li><a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/arizona">Arizona</a> gubernatorial candidate Christine Jones, who gave more than $5.3 million, nearly all to fund her own campaign, only to lose in the Republican primary;</li>
<li>And Chicago-based hedge fund manager Ken Griffin, who has given more than $4.7 million, mostly to Rauner in Illinois.</li>
</ul>
<p>The analysis is preliminary — the totals will only go up as more contribution reports are filed in the states. In addition, the National Institute is still processing reports that have already come in. Less than 80 percent of those reports have been processed thus far this election cycle.</p>
<p>Despite those limitations, the Center still identified at least <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/10/29/16100/million-dollar-club">29 of these million-dollar donors</a> who have given more than $84 million* out of the more than $1 billion in the two-year, 2014 election cycle. The Center looked at reports processed by the National Institute through Oct. 29.</p>
<p>While the race for <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/02/15447/whos-buying-senate">U.S. Senate</a> has grabbed most of the national election headlines this year, much of the action is at the <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/22/15623/state-ad-wars-tracker">state level</a>. Thirty-six governorships are on the ballot in addition to more than 200&nbsp;other statewide races and thousands of statehouse contests.</p>
<p>And unlike at the federal level, some states allow unlimited contributions to candidates. In addition, several states also allow direct contributions from the treasuries of corporations and unions.</p>
<p><strong>Seeding their own chances</strong></p>
<p>Rauner, Wolf and Jones are just three of at least 12 candidates for state-level office who have poured at least $1 million into their own campaigns.</p>
<p>States can limit contributions to candidates, but there are no such limitations on how much a candidate can give to his or her own campaign. That gives wealthy individuals with political aspirations an advantage over less wealthy opponents, said&nbsp;<a href="http://www.drexel.edu/histpol/contact/facultyDirectory/WilliamLRosenberg/">Bill Rosenberg</a>, a political science professor at Drexel University.</p>
<p>“If an individual wants to run for public office, and they can be self-financed and the parties view them as reasonable candidates,” Rosenberg said, “a lot of times the party will just step out of the way because they can take those financial resources and put them into other races.”</p>
<p>In the case of Rauner, his early contributions to his campaign may have helped him attract even more cash to his joint campaign&nbsp;with running mate&nbsp;Evelyn Sanguinetti, including at least $4.5 million from Griffin and $7 million from the Republican Governors Association.</p>
<p>“The millions reassured prospective donors that the Republican Party wasn’t going to have a flash in the pan here, that he was going to be in until the end, that he wasn’t going to get outspent,” said&nbsp;<a href="http://www.pol.illinois.edu/people/bjgaines">Brian Gaines</a>, a political science professor at the University of Illinois.</p>
<p><strong>Limitations on influence</strong></p>
<p>But other donors who give directly to candidates often face strict limits.</p>
<p>In 21 states, corporations cannot give money to candidates’ campaigns, and 16 states ban unions from giving, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.&nbsp;(Unions and corporations can give through their political action committees, though contributions may be limited.)</p>
<p>Thirty-eight states cap the amount a person or group can give to a single candidate.</p>
<p>And until recently, donors in more than a dozen states&nbsp;were limited in how much money they could give overall in an election cycle. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down aggregate limits at the federal level in April, with its ruling in&nbsp;<em><a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/04/22/14611/mccutcheon-decision-explained-more-money-pour-political-process">McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission</a></em>. &nbsp;States such as&nbsp;<a href="http://www.ct.gov/seec/lib/seec/laws_and_regulations/ao_2014-03.pdf">Connecticut</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="http://gab.wi.gov/node/3184">Wisconsin</a>&nbsp;have pledged to not enforce the limits in state elections this year.</p>
<p>It’s not yet clear how far-reaching the impact of the decision may be on this election. Still, the existing contribution limits largely shape the way money pours into elections.</p>
<p>The two states seeing the highest number of donations to candidates from the mega-donors so far are&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/texas">Texas</a>, where individuals and political action committees can give candidates as much as they want, and&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/illinois">Illinois</a>, whose governor’s race allows unlimited contributions this cycle.</p>
<p>Six-figure donations are the norm in marquee races in Texas.</p>
<p>This cycle, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, a Republican running for governor, received at least $900,000 from Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons, who died in December 2013. &nbsp;Energy tycoon Kelcy Warren&nbsp;has given Abbott at least $450,000, while telecommunications executive Kenny Troutt&nbsp;along with his wife, Lisa, has given him at least $350,000.</p>
<p>Such large-scale giving does not carry a stigma in Texas of trying to buy access, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://politicalscience.rice.edu/Content.aspx?id=103">Mark P. Jones</a>, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston. Instead, he said, it is “simply par for the course” in the Lone Star State.</p>
<p>“Large donations have little to no political blowback,” Jones said.</p>
<p>Under Illinois rules, if a candidate for statewide office contributes more than $250,000 to his or her own campaign, or if an outside group spends that amount supporting a candidate in the race, caps for contributions to a single candidate are thrown out in that race.</p>
<p>At first Rauner, the Republican gubernatorial candidate, avoided giving his opponent the chance for limitless fundraising by injecting $249,000, just below the threshold, into his campaign in March 2013.</p>
<p>But before the end of that year, Rauner gave his campaign another $1 million, pulling the plug on caps in the race. By now, the Republican nominee has contributed more than $26 million of his own money to his campaign, according to Illinois campaign finance records.</p>
<p>Rauner’s campaign did not respond to the Center’s request for comment.</p>
<p>His self-funding also cleared the path for incumbent Gov. Pat Quinn and his running mate to accept more than $3.6 million from the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/democratic-governors-association">Democratic Governors Association</a>, more than $755,000 from Chicago media mogul Fred Eychaner and millions from unions, including more than $1.2 million from a branch of the Service Employees International Union.</p>
<p><strong>Getting around the limits</strong></p>
<p>Even in states with contribution restrictions, well-heeled donors have found ways to give generously — and legally — to the candidates they favor.</p>
<p>In Pennsylvania, for example, corporations and unions can’t give directly to candidates, but they can give unlimited amounts of money if they establish a political action committee in the organization’s name. That’s how the Pennsylvania State Education Association, a state teachers union, gave $500,000 to Wolf’s gubernatorial campaign.</p>
<p>In New York, wealthy individuals can donate through multiple limited liability corporations to dodge the state’s $60,800 per cycle contribution limit&nbsp;for such businesses. Real estate magnate Leonard Litwin, for example, has given at least $1 million to Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo using this method, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/242206020/NYPIRG-Gov-Fundraising-10-7-2014">a recent report</a>&nbsp;by the New York Public Interest Research Group.&nbsp;The original sources of such contributions, though, are not reflected in the National Institute on Money in State Politics’ data.</p>
<p>A representative for Litwin did not respond to requests for comment.</p>
<p>Sometimes the best way around the rules is to avoid them altogether by giving to independent groups instead of candidate campaigns. Thanks to the 2010 Supreme Court ruling in&nbsp;<em><a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/10/18/11527/citizens-united-decision-and-why-it-matters">Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission</a></em>, and subsequent rulings, there is no limit to what a person, corporation or union can give to independently acting political organizations.</p>
<p>The tactic is widespread this election. Roughly a fifth of the television ads airing in state-level races this cycle were paid for by groups that operate independently from candidates’ official campaigns, according to a&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/state-ad-wars-tracker">Center for Public Integrity analysis</a>&nbsp;of data from media tracking firm Kantar Media/CMAG.</p>
<p>But many donors this cycle have given directly to candidates and helped fund outside political efforts beyond state-level races.</p>
<p>Eychaner, for example, may not make a list of million-dollar donors to candidates for state-level office this election. He has so far given at least $755,000 to Quinn in Illinois. But he has also given about $8 million to federal super PACs this year, according to the Federal Election Commission. In 2012, he was the largest Democratic donor to independent spending groups, having given $14 million, according to the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/summ.php?cycle=2012&amp;disp=D&amp;type=V&amp;superonly=N">Center for Responsive Politics</a>.</p>
<p>A representative for Eychaner declined to comment.</p>
<p>On the other side, Griffin was&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/10/16/15946/bloomberg-helps-democratic-governors-group-close-gap-republicans">one of the five largest donors</a>&nbsp;to the Washington, D.C.-based&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/republican-governors-association">Republican Governors Association</a>&nbsp;in the first nine months of this year, according to the group’s latest tax filing.</p>
<p>A representative for Griffin declined to comment.</p>
<p><strong>Why do they give?</strong></p>
<p>For individual donors, there are several likely reasons why they may give to candidates’ campaigns, said Loyola Law School Professor&nbsp;<a href="http://www.lls.edu/aboutus/facultyadministration/faculty/facultylistl-r/levittjustin/">Justin Levitt</a>.</p>
<p>For some, political ideology is a motivating factor, Levitt said. For others, large contributions are a way for donors to thrust themselves into the public consciousness. Still others are looking to gain favor with the people who could end up regulating their business interests. Sometimes, it’s a combination of the three.</p>
<p>Though some corporations are ideologically motivated, most businesses’ political donations are effectively “bet hedging,” he said.</p>
<p>Cable television giant Comcast Corp. parceled out at least $1.2 million in donations to candidates for state-level office in 36 states, often with as little as $100 given to the campaign of a legislative candidate.</p>
<p>“We believe that it’s important to be involved in the political process,” said Comcast spokeswoman Sena Fitzmaurice.&nbsp;“There are probably thousands of bills and regulatory state actions every year that affect the company.”</p>
<p>Fitzmaurice said the company tends to give across party lines and mostly to incumbents.</p>
<p>The company gave to Democrats in 28 states, Republicans in 31 states and at least one independent in&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/alabama">Alabama</a>, the Center’s analysis shows.</p>
<p>Where the company directs its political donations could depend on factors such as whether an election could shift party control of a state legislature or whether a state is considering regulatory action, Fitzmaurice said.</p>
<p>“For a corporation, making a donation may well be laying a bed of good will for legislators or regulators down the line, either to prevent unfavorable legislation or to try and get favorable legislation,” Levitt said. “It’s not uncommon at all for legislators, at least, to do a mental check of whether they’ve received a contribution before they decide exactly how badly they want to schedule a particular meeting.”</p>
<p><em>* About $12 million of Rauner's&nbsp;total came in&nbsp;campaign finance reports not yet processed by the National Institute on Money in State Politics and is not reflected in overall contribution totals.</em></p>
<p><strong><em>Liz Essley Whyte contributed to this report.</em></strong></p>
Illinois Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner, center, speaks after attending a meeting of The Illinois Business Immigration Coalition in Chicago in April&nbsp;2013.&nbsp;
Rachel Bayehttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/rachel-bayeReity O'Brienhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/reity-obrienBen Wiederhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/ben-wiederSecretive groups spend millions to influence state electionshttp://www.publicintegrity.org/node/15896Nonprofits hit TV airwaves with attacks on state-level candidates, gaining traction since the U.S. Supreme Court &#039;Citizens United&#039; decision.Secretive money buys TV adsPolitics;Fundraising;Political action committee;Lobbying in the United States;Negative campaigning;Elections in the United States;Campaign finance in the United States;Political campaign;Nonprofit organization;Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission;Issue advocacy ads;Law Enforcement Alliance of America2014-10-10T10:59:42-04:002014-10-09T05:00:01-04:00<p><em><strong>Editor’s note:</strong>&nbsp;The Center for Public Integrity is tracking political advertising in races for the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/02/15447/whos-buying-senate" target="_blank">U.S. Senate</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/22/15623/state-ad-wars-tracker" target="_blank">state-level offices</a>. Use these two, interactive features — with new data every Thursday — to see who is calling the shots and where the money is being spent.</em></p>
<p>Of the millions of dollars worth of ads aired in Kansas’ competitive gubernatorial race, most have not been paid for by the campaigns of Gov. Sam Brownback, a Republican, or his Democratic opponent, Paul Davis.</p>
<p>Instead, two vaguely named entities have dominated television airwaves there, spending more than $3 million to saturate commercial breaks from Topeka to Wichita with roughly 7,000 ads that boosted or bashed the incumbent governor.</p>
<p>Who funds these groups remains largely a mystery. The groups, nonprofits exempt from paying taxes, are not required to disclose their donors in <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/kansas" style="line-height: 1.6;">Kansas</a> and most other states.</p>
<p>One group called the <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/alliance-for-freedom" style="line-height: 1.6;">Alliance for Freedom</a>, a Virginia-based conservative nonprofit, sponsored ads touting Brownback’s accomplishments as governor. <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/kansas-values-institute" style="line-height: 1.6;">Kansas Values Institute</a>, a group run by two former Republican state legislators but backed in part by a <a href="http://ethics.ks.gov/CFAScanned/PACs/2014ElecCycle/201407/PAC121_201407.pdf" style="line-height: 1.6;">teacher’s union</a>, began airing ads attacking Brownback’s record on education and economic policy soon after the August primary election. Neither group responded to requests for comment.</p>
<p>Four years ago, the last time Brownback ran, no such groups purchased ads in the governor’s race in Kansas, and only $713,000 was spent on TV ads overall. This cycle, non-disclosing groups paid $3.3 million of the $6.3 million spent on ads run in the state so far. And Kansans have seen more ads for state-level elections produced by these secretive groups than voters in any other state.</p>
<p>Since 2010, a year when the U.S. Supreme Court’s <em>Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission</em> decision <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/10/18/11527/citizens-united-decision-and-why-it-matters" style="line-height: 1.6;">loosened restrictions on third-party political spending</a>, such secretive groups have gained traction in state politics even beyond Kansas.</p>
<p>With less than a month to go until Election Day, more than two dozen of these political nonprofit groups have aired at least $9.3 million worth of ads to influence state elections in 16 states across the country this cycle. It’s a small slice of the $430 million spent on <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/state-ad-wars-tracker" style="line-height: 1.6;">TV advertising overall</a>&nbsp;for state-level offices, according to a <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/">Center for Public Integrity</a> analysis of preliminary data through Oct. 6 from media tracking service Kantar Media/CMAG. But it has already surpassed the $8.4 million spent by such groups during the entire 2010 election cycle, when a comparable number of governors’ seats were up for election.</p>
<p><strong>Related:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/02/15447/whos-buying-senate" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; color: red;">Big money</a>&nbsp;is being spent in&nbsp;U.S. Senate elections, and <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/10/08/15899/democrats-seize-air-supremacy-senate-battlegrounds">Democrats have an edge</a> in the ad wars.&nbsp;</strong></p>
<p>Yet given the buffet of options donors can access to influence an election —including&nbsp;contributions to candidates, parties or political action committees —&nbsp;why have these secretive groups that are supposed to promote “social welfare,” not politics, become more active in the states?</p>
<p>“It’s because they can,” said&nbsp;<a href="http://www.polisci.wisc.edu/people/person.aspx?id=1063" style="line-height: 1.6;">Kenneth Mayer</a>, a professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies campaign finance.</p>
<p>Groups such as Kansas Values Institute may attract donors who seek the anonymity provided by many of these nonprofits.</p>
<p>“People believe that there is an important constitutional right to engage in anonymous spending,” Mayer said, referencing the view articulated by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in the 2010 <em>Citizens United</em> case. “If you don’t have to disclose, there might be some reasons why you would find it in your interests.”</p>
<p>However the ability of these nonprofit organizations to engage in political spending predates Citizens United by about 30 years, according to Marcus Owens, an attorney and former director of the IRS’s Tax Exempt Organizations Divisions.</p>
<p>Since 1981, groups such as the National Rifle Association, AARP and Planned Parenthood —&nbsp;sometimes referred to as “501(c)(4)’s” in shorthand for the section of&nbsp;<a href="http://www.irs.gov/Charities-&amp;-Non-Profits/Other-Non-Profits/Types-of-Organizations-Exempt-under-Section-501(c)(4)" style="line-height: 1.6;">Internal Revenue Code</a>&nbsp;under which they are regulated —&nbsp; have been legally permitted to purchase “issue ads,” which may name candidates but not urge viewers to “vote for” or vote against” a specific politician. Groups could engage in this narrow kind of election activity, without disclosing the source of their funds, so long as such politicking was not the group’s “primary purpose.”</p>
<p><em>Citizens United</em>, combined with another 2010 ruling from a lower federal court, freed corporations and unions to spend limitlessly to directly advocate for the victory or defeat of candidates. For the nonprofit groups, which are technically corporations, the court rulings provided both new legal freedom and a symbolic boost.</p>
<p>“The rules were already there,” Owens said. <em>Citizens United</em> signaled to these groups that, “the sort of psychological impact of federal election law was lessened and the way was clear for more corporate-oriented money to flow in.”</p>
<p>Attempts by the IRS to regulate this new kind of political spending — and allegations that the agency was disproportionately targeting conservative groups with its audits — resulted in the resignation of a high-ranking &nbsp;IRS official a year ago. Hobbled from the brouhaha, the IRS has been limited in its supervision of these groups, as the Center for Public Integrity has&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/07/15/15035/hobbled-irs-cant-stem-dark-money-flow" style="line-height: 1.6;">previously reported</a>.</p>
<p>This election cycle, more than 65 percent of the ads by such groups have been negative attacks on candidates for the top-of-the-ticket gubernatorial races.</p>
<p>Leaving the negative message to outside players, especially those groups that can shield the identity of their donors, allows candidates to insulate themselves from the public backlash that can come with a negative campaign, according to&nbsp;<a href="http://www.centerforpolitics.org/staff_kyle.html" style="line-height: 1.6;">Kyle Kondik</a>, a political analyst at the University of Virginia's Center for&nbsp;Politics.</p>
<p>“It’s preferred to have the outside group doing the really brutal stuff,” Kondik said.&nbsp; “Because the candidate can really disavow it or they don’t have to claim responsibility for it.</p>
<p>Some entities active during 2010 have reappeared in 2014. For example,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/american-future-fund" style="line-height: 1.6;">American Future Fund</a>, a conservative group based in Iowa, aired ads in attorneys general races in Ohio, Iowa and Kansas in 2010 and returned to spend more than $360,000 to boost Republican candidates in the Nebraska gubernatorial and Arkansas attorney general contests this cycle. The&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/law-enforcement-alliance-of-america" style="line-height: 1.6;">Law Enforcement Alliance of America</a>, another Virginia-based nonprofit was active in Michigan’s state supreme court and attorney general races in 2010. This time, it spent nearly $165,000 to attack one candidate for the Arkansas Supreme Court.</p>
<p>Less is known about newer entities.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/save-our-future-now" style="line-height: 1.6;">Arizona Save Our Future Now</a>, a Phoenix-based nonprofit that formed in 2012, aired more than $1 million in television ads attacking Vernon Parker, a Republican candidate for Arizona’s corporation commission this election. The five-member board sets utility rates.</p>
<p>Including spending by Arizona Save Our Future Now,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/Arizona" style="line-height: 1.6;">Arizona</a>&nbsp;has seen roughly $2.6 million in secretive spending in its state-level elections this year, the most in the country apart from Kansas, according to the Center for Public Integrity’s analysis.</p>
<p>Arizona Save Our Future Now and four other nonprofit groups active in Arizona triggered an audit from the secretary of state’s office in July compelling the organizations to prove they spend more funds on “social welfare” than on influencing elections, or else register as political committees and disclose their donor lists.</p>
<p>None of those five groups disclosed its donors to Arizona election regulators, but the groups did reply to audits with&nbsp;<a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1274023/response-from-save-our-future-now-08-03-14.pdf" style="line-height: 1.6;">evidence</a>&nbsp;of nonpartisan get-out-the-vote activity that they argued adequately offset their political advertisements.</p>
<p>In some states, these politically active groups have had to disclose their donors. In&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/north-carolina" style="line-height: 1.6;">North Carolina</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/georgia" style="line-height: 1.6;">Georgia</a>, for example, some of these groups airing political ads have revealed their funders despite their federal tax status.</p>
<p>But in other states, such entities that apply for income tax exemptions don’t need to file an annual report to the IRS disclosing their officers and financial information until more than a year after they form and long after Election Day, further obscuring who controls the message voters see on television ads, according to Owens.</p>
<p>Sometimes the groups can set up shop, air ads during an election then dissolve as soon as the polls close, without registering with the IRS or state agencies. With a two-year lag before a group reaches the top of the IRS audit pile and a three-year statute of limitations, Owens said he suspects many politically-active nonprofits are playing “audit roulette,” hoping to run down the clock before disclosure requirements kick in.</p>
<p>“There seems to be a sense generally that secret money flowing into state elections is potentially corrupting, potentially in violation of particular state laws,” he said. “You certainly don’t know who’s funding political campaigns, and it might be useful information for voters to know.”</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, a Republican, answers a question while his Democratic challenger, Paul Davis, right, listens during their first debate in September 2014, at the Kansas State Fair in Hutchinson, Kansas.&nbsp;
Reity O'Brienhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/reity-obrien12 things to know about who’s trying to influence your vote in 2014http://www.publicintegrity.org/node/15773If you watch TV you&#039;ve seen an unbelievable number of political ads asking for your vote. Do you know who is paying for those ads, and why?Who&#039;s buying your vote?Politics;Business;Advertising;Entertainment_Culture;Communication;Campaign advertising;Graphic design;Communication design;Design2014-09-27T13:42:21-04:002014-09-26T15:15:32-04:00<p>We're a little over a month away from the 2014 midterm elections, and in addition to control of the U.S. Senate there are more than 6,300 state-level races around the country in play.</p>
<p>And if you watch TV&nbsp;you've seen an unbelievable number of political ads asking for your vote. Do you know who is paying for those ads, and why?</p>
<p>The Center for Public Integrity is trying answer this question, by investigating who is trying to influence the 2014 elections through television advertising. We <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/24/15738/who-s-trying-influence-your-vote">created two apps to track spending on political advertising</a> throughout the U.S. – and reveal the source behind the dollars spent to influence your vote.</p>
<p><strong>Here’s what we’ve found about who’s trying to influence your vote:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>More money is being thrown into state races than Senate ones so far this election.<br />
&nbsp;</li>
<li>More than <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/state-ad-wars-tracker">$280 million</a> has been spent so far nationwide on television ads promoting and attacking candidates running for state political offices in 2014, a third less than at a comparable point in 2010.<br />
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Political television ads trying to influence state-level races in the 2014 elections have run more than 540,000 times in 44 states starting in June 2013, according to <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/state-ad-wars-tracker">the analysis of Kantar Media/CMAG data</a>, sucking up the equivalent of 195 days of airtime if run continuously.<br />
&nbsp;</li>
<li>The states where most has been spent buying political TV ads so far:
<ol>
<li><a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/pennsylvania">Pennsylvania</a>: $37 million</li>
<li><a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/texas">Texas</a>: $36.8 million</li>
<li><a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/florida">Florida</a>: $33.7 million</li>
<li><a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/illinois">Illinois</a>: $26.4 million</li>
<li><a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/new-york">New York</a>: $14.5 million<br />
​</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li>Amounts spent per voter on political TV ads, the top 5 states:
<ol>
<li><a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/rhode-island">Rhode Island</a>: $7.77</li>
<li><a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/pennsylvania">Pennsylvania</a>: $3.99</li>
<li><a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/maryland">Maryland</a>: $3.48</li>
<li><a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/nebraska">Nebraska</a>: $3.12</li>
<li><a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/illinois">Illinois</a>: $2.94<br />
&nbsp;</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li>More than 90 independent groups have spent $55 million to shape state-level races in 30 states, accounting for roughly 19 percent of state-level political ad dollars this cycle. In 2010, such groups spent $50 million and made up only 12 percent of spending.<br />
&nbsp;</li>
<li>The top spending independent groups in this election cycle are:
<ol>
<li><a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/22/15716/republican-governors-association">The Republican Governors Association</a> ($11.4 million) – active in 13 states</li>
<li>Pro-Florida Gov. Rick Scott group, <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/22/15690/lets-get-work">Let’s Get to Work</a>, ($10.8 million)</li>
<li><a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/22/15737/democratic-governors-association">Democratic Governors Association</a> ($5.1 million) – active in Michigan, Arkansas, Connecticut, South Carolina</li>
<li>The union-backed <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/illinois-freedom-pac">Illinois Freedom Political Action Committee</a> ($4.9 million)</li>
<li>Billionaire Tom Steyer-backed <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/22/15703/nextgen-climate-action">NextGen Climate Action Committee</a> ($2.3 million) – active in Florida and Pennsylvania<br />
&nbsp;</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li>The most expensive races are all for governor, in these states:
<ol>
<li><a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/pennsylvania">Pennsylvania</a>: $35.5 million</li>
<li><a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/florida">Florida</a>: $31.8 million</li>
<li><a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/illinois">Illinois</a>: $26 million</li>
<li><a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/new-york">New York</a>: $13.2 million</li>
<li><a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/maryland">Maryland</a>: $12.1 million</li>
</ol>
</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>The $2.1 million race for&nbsp;<a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/oklahoma">Oklahoma</a>&nbsp;education superintendent is the 25th priciest nationwide for television, surpassing the amount spent to elect governors in at least 14 states.<br />
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Spending on state supreme court races has outstripped 2010 by a 3-1 ratio, with more than $3.1 million spent to air ads in six states.<br />
&nbsp;</li>
<li>There are more incumbent governors and fewer legislative chambers up for grabs this year than in 2010. That appears to have led to a lower voter turnout rate this year than in 2010 in at least 28 states, according to numbers from state election officials across the country.<br />
&nbsp;</li>
<li>The bulk of political spending is almost certainly still to come. In 2010, 55 percent of the overall spending came in the final two months.<br />
&nbsp;</li>
<li>In total, 44 states have had at least some ads, while six states have had no ads yet: Delaware, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, Utah, Wyoming.</li>
</ul>
A screenshot from an ad attacking Tom Wolf, the Democratic nominee in the Pennsylvania governor race, paid for by Tom Corbett for Governor.
Ben Wiederhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/ben-wiederKytja Weirhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/kytja-weirReity O'Brienhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/reity-obrienRachel Bayehttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/rachel-bayeNon-candidate spending increases in state electionshttp://www.publicintegrity.org/node/15551TV ad spending in state elections since 2010 is down, but the portion ponied up by political nonprofits and state-level super PACs rises.Citizens United in the statesBusiness_Finance;Politics;United States presidential election;Political action committee;Lobbying in the United States;Attack ad;527 Organization;California;Republican Party presidential primaries;Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission;Jerry Brown;Rick Scott;Gray Davis2014-09-27T13:43:25-04:002014-09-24T00:01:45-04:00<p>Kitchen cabinet magnate Tom Wolf has tapped his own considerable wealth to help blanket Pennsylvania's&nbsp;airwaves with <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/state-ad-wars-tracker">more than $11 million worth of television ads</a>, surging ahead of a crowded Democratic primary field and opening up a lead in the general election polls against incumbent Republican Gov. Tom Corbett.</p>
<p>His bid is also getting help from two political groups, <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/22/15707/pa-families-first">PA Families First</a> and <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/22/15703/nextgen-climate-action">NextGen Climate Action Committee</a>, which have already aired an unprecedented $3 million in ads themselves, 10 times more independent spending than occurred statewide in 2010.</p>
<p>Fueled in part by Wolf and also the political groups empowered by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/21/15572/pennsylvania">Pennsylvania</a> is on top of the heap for ad spending so far in state-level races in 2014, with more than $37 million already spent, followed by <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/21/15573/texas">Texas</a> ($36.8 million), <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/21/15574/florida">Florida</a>&nbsp;($33.7 million), <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/21/15575/illinois">Illinois</a>&nbsp;($26.4 million) and <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/21/15576/new-york">New York</a> ($14.5 million).</p>
<p>Through Sept. 8, one day before the final five state primary elections, more than $280 million nationwide was spent on television ads promoting and attacking candidates running for state political office in 2014.</p>
<p>The total is actually a third less than at a comparable point in 2010, but more money was provided by independent groups like those in Pennsylvania, according to a Center for Public Integrity <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/">analysis of data</a> from media tracking service <a href="http://kantarmedia.us/product/cmag-advertising-data-reports-ad-alerts">Kantar Media/CMAG</a>.</p>
<p>More than 90 of these non-candidate organizations have spent $55 million to shape state-level races in 30 states, accounting for roughly 19 percent of state-level political ad dollars. Four years ago, such groups spent $50 million and made up only 12 percent of spending. That translates to about 30,000 more ads this cycle from such groups.</p>
<p>The top spending independent groups so far are the <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/22/15716/republican-governors-association">Republican Governors Association</a> at $11.4 million, Florida’s conservative <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/22/15690/lets-get-work">Let's Get to Work</a> political committee ($10.8 million), the <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/22/15737/democratic-governors-association">Democratic Governors Association</a> ($5.1 million), the union-backed <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/illinois-freedom-pac">Illinois Freedom Political Action Committee</a> ($4.9 million) and the aforementioned <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/22/15703/nextgen-climate-action">NextGen Climate Action Committee</a> ($2.3 million), created by California hedge fund manager and environmentalist Tom Steyer.</p>
<p>The increase in spending by non-candidate committees can be traced in part to the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision&nbsp;<em><a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/10/18/11527/citizens-united-decision-and-why-it-matters">Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission</a></em>, decided early in 2010. The ruling gave the green light to unions and corporations to spend unlimited funds on ads supporting or opposing candidates.</p>
<p>Such spending is significant because contributions from corporations and labor unions to candidates in most states are either limited or banned altogether.</p>
<p><em>Citizens United</em> and a separate lower-court decision led to the creation of super PACs and political nonprofits, which collect such donations and spend the money on advertising and other election materials. The decision forced 24 states including Pennsylvania, which limited such spending, to change their laws.</p>
<p>Even in some states, where the decision had no legal impact, there has still been an increase in spending from such groups. In <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/21/15590/nebraska">Nebraska</a>, independent groups upended the traditional dynamic by helping push political outsider and tea party favorite Pete Ricketts ahead of establishment candidate Attorney General Jon Bruning to win the GOP nomination for governor in the May primary.</p>
<p>“Nebraska has never seen the kind of third-party spending like it saw in 2014 from a state perspective,” said Jordan McGrain, the former executive director of the state’s Republican Party who led Bruning’s campaign. “The parties play a role, but at least in Nebraska, it’s no longer a kingmaker role.”</p>
<p>While it’s a midterm cycle for federal elections, more than 6,300 political seats are at stake in the states — the most in four years.</p>
<p>Though television ads are not the only campaign tool used in politics, they do indicate which races are the most competitive and expensive.</p>
<p><strong>Ads inundate voters in state races</strong></p>
<p>Political television ads trying to influence state-level races in the 2014 elections have run more than 540,000 times in 44 states starting in June 2013, according to the analysis of Kantar Media/CMAG data, sucking up the equivalent of 195 days of airtime if run continuously.</p>
<p>Though Pennsylvania has seen the most spending on political television ads for state races overall, a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/21/15586/rhode-island">Rhode Islander</a>&nbsp;has likely seen far more ads.</p>
<p>With roughly $5.8 million spent on advertising, the small state led the country with the most spent per eligible voter thanks to an especially fierce Democratic primary contest on Sept. 9 for the seat opened up by Gov. Lincoln Chafee, who is not seeking re-election.</p>
<p>Gina Raimondo defeated and outspent Providence Mayor Angel Taveras and the largely self-funded Clay Pell to win the Democratic nomination, despite opposition from public employee unions because of pension reforms Raimondo initiated as the state’s general treasurer. Cranston Mayor Allan Fung emerged from a comparatively tame Republican primary, in which both candidates combined spent one-fifth the amount on television ads that Raimondo did alone.</p>
<p>In total, an estimated $7.77 was spent per possible voter —&nbsp;enough for coffee and half a dozen donuts, with change to spare, at the famed Allie’s Donuts in North Kingstown, Rhode Island.</p>
<p>That’s too many donuts for one person to eat, said shop owner Anne Drescher, and too much money spent on ads that could instead fund scholarships or fix roads.</p>
<p>“It’s unnecessary for it to be so over the top,” Drescher said. “If there’s any way they can take some of that money and invest it in the state, that would be the best PR plug to win any office.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/21/15572/pennsylvania">Pennsylvania</a>, at $3.99 spent per eligible voter, was second, followed by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/21/15577/maryland">Maryland</a>&nbsp;($3.48),&nbsp;<a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/21/15590/nebraska">Nebraska</a>&nbsp;($3.12) and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/21/15575/illinois">Illinois</a>&nbsp;($2.94). Spending in all five states is significantly higher than what it was at this point in 2010, fueled largely by contested governors’ races.</p>
<p>Spending is down in 24 of 44 states where political advertisements have aired so far this cycle. And spending on gubernatorial contests — the biggest ticket race at the state level — is 60 percent of what it was at this point in 2010.</p>
<p>Four years ago, there were fewer incumbent governors, meaning there were more competitive races and thus a lot more spending on ads. Twenty-nine sitting governors are seeking re-election in 2014 compared to 13 in 2010.</p>
<p>At the same point in 2010, for example, the open gubernatorial contest in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/21/15580/california">California</a>&nbsp;alone had accounted for more than $100 million in estimated advertising spending. This cycle, with favored Democrat Jerry Brown seeking re-election, less than $2 million has been spent.</p>
<p>“The playing field is very different this year,” said&nbsp;<a href="http://psc.ou.edu/tyler-johnson">Tyler Johnson</a>, a political science professor at the University of Oklahoma. “You have 20-plus governors running for re-election, so you’re immediately sort of eliminating in most of those races one competitive primary.”</p>
<p>The lack of a compelling top-of-the-ticket race in so many states appears to have led to a lower voter turnout. At least 28 states showed lower primary turnout rates than in 2010, according to numbers from state election officials across the country.</p>
<p><strong>Top ticket races dominate the airwaves</strong></p>
<p>But even at diminished levels, the 36 governors’ races across the country have fueled more than $208 million, or nearly three-quarters of all the estimated state-level advertising spending this cycle.</p>
<p>The top five most expensive races overall have been gubernatorial races, with&nbsp;<a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/21/15572/pennsylvania">Pennsylvania</a>&nbsp;($35.5 million),&nbsp;<a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/21/15574/florida">Florida</a>&nbsp;($31.8 million) and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/21/15575/illinois">Illinois</a>&nbsp;($26 million) leading the pack. Andrew Cuomo’s bid to remain the Democratic governor of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/21/15576/new-york">New York</a>&nbsp;put the Empire State fourth, with $13.2 million in spending, while blue-leaning&nbsp;<a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/21/15577/maryland">Maryland</a>&nbsp;came in at fifth ($12.1 million) thanks to a heated Democratic primary for the open seat being vacated by Gov. Martin O’Malley due to term limits.</p>
<p>Florida has the second-most expensive governor’s race in the country despite the fact that incumbent Republican Gov. Rick Scott and the Democratic nominee, former Republican Gov. Charlie Crist, faced minimal competition in the Aug. 26 primaries.</p>
<p>Heavy spending there by the parties and other non-candidate groups — one closely associated with Scott — was geared toward the November general election from the beginning.</p>
<p>Non-candidate groups have spent more on that contest than any other state race nationwide. Unlike in other states, Florida’s campaign finance laws allow candidates to work closely with seemingly outside groups,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/19/15553/outside-groups-swamp-floridas-airwaves-race-governor">rendering candidates’ own campaigns less relevant.</a></p>
<p>Illinois’ gubernatorial contest, like the one in Pennsylvania, features a wealthy businessman who has spent millions to fund a challenge against the unpopular incumbent — in this case a Democrat, Gov. Pat Quinn.</p>
<p>Illinois venture capitalist Bruce Rauner narrowly secured the GOP nomination after spending 40 times more on television ads than his closest opponent, state Sen. Kirk Dillard, in the state’s March 18 Republican primary.</p>
<p>Winning the television ad war is no guarantee of victory at the ballot, however.</p>
<p>In&nbsp;<a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/21/15573/texas">Texas</a>, the heated primary for lieutenant governor helped make that seat the sixth-most expensive race overall through Sept. 8 at $11.9 million, eclipsing even the state’s own gubernatorial race. Incumbent Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst spent nearly half of that in the four-way race, with 70 percent more spots airing than his closest challenger, state Sen. Dan Patrick. Yet Dewhurst still lost in the primary runoff for the state’s No. 2 office.</p>
<p>Patrick was able to secure endorsements from influential conservative groups such as Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, a nonprofit chaired by oil executive Tim Dunn. The group typically does not air many television ads but uses direct mail and online messaging to energize conservative voters, according to Texas political consultant Ray Sullivan, who helped run Gov. Rick Perry’s 2012 presidential campaign.</p>
<p>“Candidates in the Republican primary who secured those endorsements generally won, and they usually won over better-funded opponents,” Sullivan said.</p>
<p><strong>A third-wheel joins the race</strong></p>
<p>In this election cycle, more than 90 non-candidate organizations have run ads some 126,000 times, sometimes dueling against each other.</p>
<p>The groups vary from small, seemingly state-specific groups, such as the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/22/15669/campaign-maine">Campaign for Maine</a>&nbsp;political action committee, to sprawling national political machines with franchises in multiple states.</p>
<p>In six states, such outside groups purchased the majority of the political television ads. And in at least 17 races, the groups spent more than the candidates themselves.</p>
<p>The top independent spender nationally has been the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/22/15716/republican-governors-association">Republican Governors Association</a>, which along with its state-level subsidiaries has spent $11.4 million on ads to help elect Republican governors.</p>
<p>The GOP governors’ group has also been the biggest donor to the second highest spender nationwide, Florida’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/22/15690/lets-get-work">Let's Get to Work</a>, which has spent more than $10 million in ads to boost the re-election of Scott, the Republican governor.</p>
<p>The&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/19/15553/outside-groups-swamp-floridas-airwaves-race-governor">organization functions differently than most so-called “outside” groups</a>, having been initially seeded by a trust belonging to Scott’s wife. The ads often feature Scott speaking directly to the camera, a level of coordination between the group and the candidate that would be illegal in most states.</p>
<p>The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/22/15737/democratic-governors-association">Democratic Governors Association</a>, which along with the Republican Governors Association advocates for the election of their parties’ gubernatorial candidates, took the third spot, with $5.1 million spent so far on TV ads when including its state-level subsidiaries.</p>
<p>Union-backed Illinois Freedom PAC spent $4.9 million attacking wealthy Republican gubernatorial nominee Rauner.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/22/15703/nextgen-climate-action">NextGen Climate Action Committee</a>, the group funded by&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/02/05/14210/billionaires-use-super-pacs-advance-pet-causes">deep-pocketed environmentalist Tom Steyer</a>, has sponsored $2.3 million in ads criticizing the policies of incumbent Republican governors in Florida and Pennsylvania, sometimes widening its scope beyond environmental issues to hit hot-button topics such as education.</p>
<p>Already active in 14 states combined, the two governors’ associations have covered the most ground nationwide. The groups, referred to as 527 committees based on the section of the federal tax code under which they are organized, can accept unlimited donations from individuals, corporations and unions.</p>
<p>They can give directly to candidates in some states. In&nbsp;<a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/21/15572/pennsylvania">Pennsylvania</a>, for example, the RGA has donated $1.8 million to Corbett’s campaign.</p>
<p>But they also often air their own ads, a strategy that frees them to spend unlimited amounts in states where contributions to candidates are limited — or where union or corporate funders are not allowed to give to candidates directly.</p>
<p>Like&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/11/14/13681/puppet-states-where-money-went">puppet masters</a>&nbsp;pulling strings from Washington, D.C., they also sometimes fund satellite groups that have different names. On occasion, they finance&nbsp;<a href="http://www.citizensforethics.org/blog/entry/did-the-republican-governors-assoc-funnel-cash-in-colorado-gop-primary">front groups</a>.</p>
<p>In&nbsp;<a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/21/15588/connecticut">Connecticut</a>, the two groups are using such proxy organizations to help prop up gubernatorial candidates who have accepted public funds for their campaigns. By accepting the handouts, the candidates are limited in how much they may raise, but the groups are circumventing those restrictions, and have increased total ad spending by 18 percent.</p>
<p>The newly formed independent group&nbsp;<a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/22/15682/grow-connecticut">Grow Connecticut Inc.</a>&nbsp;has so far spent roughly $375,000 to air TV ads attacking Democrat and incumbent Gov. Dannel Malloy. The group received at least 94 percent of its money from the Republican Governors Association.</p>
<p>On the other side, the Democratic Governors Association recently fired back by pouring more than $1.2 million into&nbsp;<a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/who-calls-shots/democratic-governors-association">Connecticut Forward</a>, an independent organization which has aired an estimated $425,000 worth of ads attacking Malloy’s rival, GOP nominee and former ambassador to Ireland Tom Foley.</p>
<p><strong>Playing the bad cop</strong></p>
<p>Subject to varying state laws, outside spending groups often&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/05/16/12652/lax-state-rules-provide-cover-sponsors-attack-ads">don’t have to disclose</a>&nbsp;as much as candidates do about who funds them or where they spend their money, effectively masking who is really calling the shots.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/21/15578/arizona">Arizona</a>&nbsp;gubernatorial hopeful Christine Jones was on the receiving end of such a group — the Virginia-based&nbsp;<a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/22/15648/60-plus-association">60 Plus Association</a>, which has been&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/07/30/15163/koch-backed-seniors-group-low-balling-election-spending">connected</a>&nbsp;to the vast network of conservative nonprofits overseen by billionaires Charles and David Koch.</p>
<p>After the secretive group ran attack ads against her, she lost the GOP primary. She now feels such groups ought to disclose who funds them.</p>
<p>“It’s important for democracy, because in the end, everybody has a motivation,” said the former executive of website domain giant Go Daddy Group. &nbsp;“You might be motivated by money, you might be motivated by power, you might be motivated by getting a pet project put through. Everybody’s motivated by something.”</p>
<p>Citizens United did away with Arizona’s ban on the use of corporate and union money to influence elections,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/citizens-united-and-the-states.aspx#laws">according to a tally</a>&nbsp;by the National Conference of State Legislatures.</p>
<p>It’s not uncommon for such groups to be the ones slinging mud while the candidates they support keep it clean. More than two-thirds of ads aired by such groups attacked a candidate. By comparison, candidates were far more positive, with only 14 percent of their ads criticizing opponents.</p>
<p>For candidates, independently sponsored ads that bash their opponents have long provided the “best of both worlds,” according to Johnson, the University of Oklahoma professor.</p>
<p>“They get outsiders who are willing to attack and get those messages out there, but then there’s the sort of plausible deniability of, you know, ‘That’s not our ad’ and ‘We didn’t approve of that,’ ” Johnson said.</p>
<p><strong>A turning tide?</strong></p>
<p>The groups have made significant advances in the television ad wars since 2010, when the U.S. Supreme Court decision opened the floodgates.</p>
<p>Democratic strategist&nbsp;<a href="http://www.trippiandassociates.com/?p=35">Joe Trippi</a>, who ran Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign, has watched the spread of these organizations from the federal level to the states.</p>
<p>“That phenomenon is growing,” Trippi said. “It was in its infancy in 2010, and so I think that actually more groups exist today.”</p>
<p>But it’s not clear if the greater role such third-party ads are playing on the airwaves this election cycle is a trend that will continue beyond this year — or is just a byproduct of lower spending by incumbent candidates, according to&nbsp;<a href="http://www.usfca.edu/Faculty/Ken_Goldstein/">Ken Goldstein</a>, a University of San Francisco politics professor and expert on political advertising who advises Kantar Media/CMAG on its data.</p>
<p>“If you have outside groups who are raising a fixed amount of money in an election year, they’re going to spend it no matter what,” Goldstein said. “And so, by definition then, they’re going to comprise a greater proportion of the spending.”</p>
<p>Still, such groups have expanded their reach and moved beyond just the marquee governors’ races to spread their resources down the ballot this cycle, airing more ads than four years ago in races for state school superintendent and state supreme court justice.</p>
<p><strong>Lower on the ballot, but not in cash</strong></p>
<p>The contest for&nbsp;<a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/21/15591/oklahoma">Oklahoma</a>&nbsp;education superintendent is the 25th most expensive state-level race nationwide in terms of television advertising spending. With $2.1 million spent to air ads more than 4,400 times, the race has surpassed the amount spent to elect governors in at least 14 states.</p>
<p>Incumbent Superintendent Janet Barresi lost the Republican primary despite outspending her opponents on television ads by more than a 2-1 ratio.</p>
<p>An independent group,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/22/15706/oklahomans-public-school-excellence">Oklahomans for Public School Excellence</a>, ran an attack ad against Barresi just a handful of times, but it reinforced the mounting criticism of Barresi’s&nbsp;<a href="http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/government/state-superintendent-race-hofmeister-points-finger-at-barresi-on-common/article_ac8d73d2-c43a-11e3-91b3-001a4bcf6878.html">past support of the Common Core curriculum</a>. Opposition from both the right and the left has grown against the Obama Administration-endorsed&nbsp;<a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/special-reports/a-guide-to-common-core">education initiative</a>&nbsp;for an array of reasons, including the fear that it removes curriculum control from local decision-makers.</p>
<p>Johnson, the University of Oklahoma professor, said criticism of Barresi’s position on the policy ultimately turned the tide of the race.</p>
<p>Nationwide, state supreme court races have attracted more money spent on TV ads this cycle than in 2010 by a 3-1 ratio, with roughly $3.1 million spent to air ads in six states.</p>
<p>Races to retain three&nbsp;<a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/21/15593/tennessee">Tennessee</a>&nbsp;justices clocked in as the most expensive with about $1.4 million in ads, followed by a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/22/15598/north-carolina">North Carolina</a>&nbsp;primary for a single seat that topped $1.1 million. Independent groups dominated the races in those states and also in an election in Arkansas as they tried to sway voters in those nonpartisan elections.</p>
<p>The independent groups haven’t all been victorious. North Carolina State Supreme Court Justice Robin Hudson is advancing to the November general election despite an estimated $689,000 the group&nbsp;<a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/22/15686/justice-all-nc-pac">Justice for All NC</a>&nbsp;spent attacking her on the airwaves, saying she “sides with child predators.” She had dissented against applying electronic monitoring provisions to sex offenders whose crimes had occurred before the provisions were enacted.</p>
<p>Three Tennessee Supreme Court justices won retention elections — in which judges ran unopposed and voters decided whether they got to keep their seats — after their campaigns and an outside group fought off attacks from two other outside groups.</p>
<p>But in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/21/15583/arkansas">Arkansas</a>, spending by the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/22/15688/law-enforcement-alliance-america">Law Enforcement Alliance of America</a>&nbsp;had a particularly outsized influence in the state’s sole contested Supreme Court race between candidates Tim Cullen and Robin Wynne. The group spent nearly $320,000 on TV ads, accounting for nearly $9 out of every $10 spent in the race.</p>
<p>One ad claimed that Cullen had called child pornography a “victimless crime” while representing a convicted sex offender who was appealing his sentence. Cullen disputed the claims, and his campaign countered with its own TV ad that aimed to set the record straight. But ultimately Cullen was outspent, and he told the Center for Public Integrity the group’s ads were a major factor in his 4-percentage-point loss.</p>
<p>It’s not clear why the Virginia-based group was active in the Arkansas race. As a nonprofit regulated under section 501(c)(4) of the federal tax code, the LEAA does not have to publicly reveal its donors. In the past, the group has been backed by the National Rifle Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The LEAA did not respond to calls requesting comment.</p>
<p>The outside spending was unprecedented for an Arkansas judicial race, and according to former state Supreme Court Justice&nbsp;<a href="http://www.arkansasjustice.org/annabelletuck">Annabelle Imber Tuck</a>, the secrecy surrounding the LEAA’s funders could be particularly problematic if the funders of the ads were ever to come before the court.</p>
<p>“They influenced the election, or tried to, and now they’re parties in a case, but you don’t know that,” Tuck said. “There’s no accountability.”</p>
<p><strong>More ads coming in the final stretch</strong></p>
<p>After the primaries nailed down which candidates will compete in the general election, such outside groups started to assume an even greater role, rising from 16 percent of the ads before primary elections to 26 percent of ads afterward.</p>
<p>In Pennsylvania, for example,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/22/15703/nextgen-climate-action">NextGen Climate Action Committee</a>&nbsp;and the Democratic Governors Association-backed&nbsp;<a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/22/15707/pa-families-first">PA Families First</a>&nbsp;only jumped in after the May 20 primary. Both groups have attacked the Republican incumbent, Corbett, for cutting education spending.</p>
<p>Corbett, in response, upped his spending after his uncontested primary, buying more than $5 million worth of ads since July to defend his record and attack Wolf, his Democratic challenger.</p>
<p>If the past is any guide, the bulk of political spending is almost certainly still to come. In 2010, 55 percent of the overall spending came in the final two months. But outside groups represented a diminished share of the ads as state and local parties upped their spending.</p>
<p>Even if advertising spending in all state races doesn’t reach the 2010 total of $921 million, some states and races are poised to blow past their levels from four years ago.</p>
<p>Pennsylvania’s gubernatorial race has already topped the amount of ad spending made in all of 2010. A continued barrage of advertising aided by outside groups could push the race to record levels of spending.</p>
<p>“It's sort of like we've opened the doors,” said&nbsp;<a href="http://www.drexel.edu/histpol/contact/facultyDirectory/WilliamLRosenberg/">William Rosenberg</a>, a political science professor at Drexel University who has been following the race. “Money is an expression of free speech, and if you have more of it than someone else, you might have a bigger voice, a bigger megaphone."</p>
A screenshot from an ad attacking Tom Wolf, the Democratic nominee in the Pennsylvania governor race, paid for by Tom Corbett for Governor.
Rachel Bayehttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/rachel-bayeReity O'Brienhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/reity-obrienKytja Weirhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/kytja-weirBen Wiederhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/ben-wiederSupreme court justices earn quarter-million in cash on the sidehttp://www.publicintegrity.org/node/14981Nearly all Supreme Court justices reported earning thousands for teaching and book royalties beyond their federal salaries.Justices earn outside cashUnited States federal courts;United States courts of appeals;Supreme Court of the United States;Sonia Sotomayor;Law_Crime;Law;Royalties;John Roberts2014-06-20T16:09:49-04:002014-06-20T16:09:08-04:00<p>Between <a href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-307_6j37.pdf">legalizing gay marriage</a> and <a href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/12-536_21o2.pdf">sparring over campaign finance limits</a>, the U.S. Supreme Court kept busy — and made money — outside the marbled halls of One First Street last year.</p>
<p>All but one of the nine high court justices earned teaching income or book royalties in 2013, hauling in a quarter of a million dollars for their work shaping young legal minds in the classroom or through the written word.</p>
<p>Top earner Justice Antonin Scalia raked in more than $100,000 in book royalties for his 2012 tome "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Scalia-Garners-Reading-Interpretation-ebook/dp/B008MFO6YG/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1370635318&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=Antonin+Scalia">Reading Law: Interpretation of Legal Texts</a>" and teaching wages from Southern Methodist University, Duke University, Tufts University and Pennsylvania State University, according to new financial disclosure reports released Friday and reviewed by the Center for Public Integrity.</p>
<p>Justice Sonia Sotomayor did not report any outside income in 2013, despite the <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/06/07/12787/sonia-sotomayor-courts-riches-book-deal">recent success</a> of her memoir, "My Beloved World," for which she received $1.9 million in advances from her publisher Knopf Doubleday in 2012. In a footnote, Sotomayor explained that her publisher paid for nearly $27,000 in travel and lodging last year for the justice to promote the book.</p>
<p>Such earnings are in addition to what the jurists earn from their investments and their judicial salaries. Associate Supreme Court justices earn a salary of $244,400 dollars, while the chief justice earns $255,500, according to the <a href="http://www.fjc.gov/history/home.nsf/page/js_1.html">Federal Judicial Center.</a> Many of the judges also hold significant investments that have helped turn <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/06/14/12827/majority-supreme-court-members-millionaires">most of them into millionaires</a>.</p>
<p>Despite Chief Justice John Roberts' recent <a href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-536_e1pf.pdf">support </a>for online disclosure, he and his colleagues’ annual financial reports are not available online. Members of the public must request the documents by snail mail from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, pay for reproduction costs then pick them up either in person or have them sent in the mail.</p>
<p>The Center for Public Integrity has made them available online as PDFs below.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court at the Supreme Court in Washington. Seated from left are Associate Justices Clarence Thomas, and Antonin Scalia, Chief Justice John Roberts, Associate Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Standing, from left are Associate Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito Jr., and Elena Kagan.
Reity O'Brienhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/reity-obrienWhat do federal appellate judges own?http://www.publicintegrity.org/node/14615A database of investments, outside income, gifts and other disclosures.What judges own2014-07-03T11:43:00-04:002014-04-28T00:01:00-04:00<p>Sort by name, circuit or investment to find the assets owned, gifts and reimbursements received and extra income <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/04/28/14630/federal-judges-plead-guilty">earned by federal appellate judges</a>. Scroll down to view results in each category. Note that judges report the income and value amounts for each asset in a range. The data below represents financial disclosure reports from 2012, the most recent calendar year available. Federal judges must file 2013 reports by May 15, 2014.</p>
<p>If you believe you have a story to tell about your own experience with the court, or feel a federal appellate judge ruled on a case when he or she shouldn’t, <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/04/28/14627/get-involved-help-judges-disclosures-investigation-go-further-donations-and-news">please let us know</a>.</p>
<iframe src="http://qvs.visiblegovernment.us/QvAJAXZfc/notoolbar.htm?document=Clients/Newspapers/Public_Integrity/Judge_Disclosure/CPI_JudgeDisclosure.qvw&host=localhost&anonymous=true" width="940" height="1100" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>Note to readers:&nbsp;To access the actual disclosure form,&nbsp;click the judge's name, then click the PDF image in the right-hand corner. See a mistake? Please <a href="mailto:mobrien@publicintegrity.org">let us know</a>.</p>
<p><em>Database design by Visible Government Online</em></p>
Henry Keralihttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/henry-keraliReity O'Brienhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/reity-obrienChris Younghttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/chris-youngKytja Weirhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/kytja-weirFederal judges plead guiltyhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/node/14630Judges acknowledge conflicts of interest Center found in 26 cases.Juris imprudenceGovernment;United States courts of appeals;Supreme Court of the United States;Law_Crime;Law;Judge;United States federal judge;Judicial Conference of the United States;Judicial disqualification;Legal professions;State court;En banc;Court of Appeals of Virginia2014-08-05T10:39:06-04:002014-04-28T00:01:00-04:00<p>When Linda Wolicki-Gables and her husband appealed a lawsuit all the way to the second-highest court in the nation against Johnson &amp; Johnson over a malfunctioning medication pump that had been implanted in her body, the couple had no idea that one of the judges who decided their case had a financial stake in the giant multinational company.</p>
<p>Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge James Hill owned as much as $100,000 in Johnson &amp; Johnson stock when he and two other judges <a href="http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/ops/200914342.pdf">ruled against the Gables’ appeal</a> in the precedent-setting case.</p>
<p>For the Gables, a different decision in the 2011 appeal could have helped them win a verdict for as much as $20 million, a sum that would have vastly improved the quality of her care, according to their attorney, <a href="http://www.youngbloodlaw.com/id2.html">T. Patton Youngblood Jr</a>. Today, the Florida woman is a partial paraplegic, he said, largely confined to her home with only her husband to care for her.</p>
<p>The Center also found that Hill ruled on three other appeals involving companies in&nbsp;which he owned stock,&nbsp;violating clear rules governing the federal courts. In all four instances, the court rulings favored his financial interest. In a statement released by the court, Hill said he was not aware of those stock holdings at the time due to the complexity of his family’s trusts.</p>
<p>“You like to think that people will be above board but we all know that’s not the case. You can’t presume that,” said Youngblood, the Gables’ attorney. “I don’t think it’s fair that he was able to preside over this thing. I just don’t think that’s right. That’s why they ask you for disclosures so that you don’t end up presiding over cases where you have a financial or other conflict.”</p>
<p>The Center for Public Integrity uncovered Hill's&nbsp;conflicts by examining the <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/04/22/14615/what-do-your-federal-appellate-judges-own">three most recent years of financial disclosure reports filed by 255 of the 258 judges who sit on the nation’s 13 appellate circuits</a>. In all, the Center identified 24 cases where judges owned stock in a company with a case before them. In two other instances,&nbsp;judges had financial ties with law firms working on cases over which they presided, bringing the total to 26 conflicts.</p>
<p>After the Center notified the judges of its findings, 16 judges had letters sent to the parties in all of those cases uncovered by the Center during&nbsp;the months-long investigation. The letters are the first step in possibly reopening the cases.</p>
<p>The violations occurred even though clear rules regarding conflicts of interest exist. Federal judges may not sit on cases in which they have a financial interest, according to a <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/455">federal law</a>. A <a href="http://www.uscourts.gov/RulesAndPolicies/CodesOfConduct/CodeConductUnitedStatesJudges.aspx">similar rule</a> is also in place in the code of conduct established by the court system. Judges have been warned before about&nbsp;participating in such cases. Following a <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/17/AR2006041701296.html"><em>Washington Post</em> investigation</a> in 2006, the courts even added a computerized screening process to help judges avoid&nbsp;conflicts.</p>
<p>Yet the problems continue.</p>
<p>The Center’s findings point to a larger issue of accountability — or lack thereof — in the federal court system. Judges face no formal punishment for breaking these rules.</p>
<p>Appellate judges can affect a company’s stock price — or even an entire industry sector — with their rulings. They are also far more likely to own stock than the average American, making it all the more important for them to avoid the perception that their holdings could influence their rulings.</p>
<p>Some judges don’t own individual stocks at all to avoid the risk of conflicting with their cases. Many judges are extremely careful in reviewing their holdings. Yet the Center’s findings show that some judges do not keep track of their own investments, even with the help of computerized databases. Sometimes they have failed to do so repeatedly, like Hill.</p>
<p>“Come on guys, this is your obligation,” said Youngblood. “You tell us all the time about ignorance being no excuse.”</p>
<p><a href="http://cumberland.samford.edu/faculty/william-g-ross">William G. Ross</a>, a Samford University law professor in Alabama who specializes in judicial ethics, said such failures undermine public confidence in the judiciary.</p>
<p>“Considering the importance of judicial integrity and avoidance of conflicts of interest, I don’t think it is asking too much of a judge to expect him or her to know what his or her holdings are,” he said. “Even judges with significant portfolios should be familiar with their own holdings.”</p>
<p><strong>Wealthy, powerful and unknown</strong></p>
<p>The Center found that 59 percent of all federal appellate judges reported owning stock, despite the risk that the companies in which they have a financial stake could come before them. By comparison, the proportion of American families who directly own stock is much lower, just 15 percent as of 2010.</p>
<p>That imbalance has grown over the past half-century, according to Ross, the Samford University professor. Like most highly paid professionals in America, federal judges have much larger and more diverse portfolios than they would have had 30 or 40 years ago, he said.</p>
<p>All told, 150 of the judges on the appellate court invested between $76 million and $226 million in more than 1,000 corporations in 2012, according to the Center’s analysis. Disclosure rules require holdings to be reported in a range.</p>
<p>Among the most commonly held stocks owned by&nbsp;appellate judges were General Electric Co. (at least $2.5 million), tech giants Intel Corp. (at least $495,000), Microsoft Corp. (at least $630,000) and IBM Corp. ($1.5 million), plus energy heavyweight ExxonMobil Corp. (at least $3.8 million) — a list that generally dovetails with most commonly held stocks among all investors.</p>
<p>The Center examined&nbsp;the finances of 161 active and 94 senior judges, who also try cases in semi-retirement. The judges must disclose their holdings annually, plus those of their spouses and any dependent children.</p>
<p>Forty-one&nbsp;percent of the judges the Center reviewed have eschewed individual stocks altogether, in some cases to deliberately avoid what one judge called the “mousetrap” of corporate stock ownership, opting instead for generally safer, if potentially&nbsp;less lucrative, investments such as mutual funds, bonds or real estate. Such investments are also less likely to interfere with a judge’s day job.</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, judges who did not report owning individual stocks were less wealthy, on average, than their stock-owning counterparts.</p>
<p>The median value of a non-stockholding judge’s investments was between $498,000 and $1.3 million compared with stock-holding judges, who reported between $1.4 million and $4.2 million.</p>
<p>Total reported assets, including stock and other investments, for all the judges were between $585 million and $1.8 billion, according to the Center’s calculations.</p>
<p>The easiest fix to the conflict of interest problem would be to ban judges from owning stock, but that would be “an overreaction,” said&nbsp;<a href="https://its.law.nyu.edu/facultyprofiles/profile.cfm?section=bio&amp;personID=19943">Stephen Gillers</a>, a New York University law professor who specializes in legal ethics.</p>
<p>“It would be a high price to demand of people who go on to the bench that they limit their investments to government securities and mutual funds,” he said.</p>
<p>For their work in the courts, federal appellate judges earn $211,200 a year, even in retirement, a salary far greater than the average American family, which pulls in roughly $52,000 a year. Still, that’s relatively low compared to what a top-notch lawyer can make in the private sector.</p>
<p>Appellate judges’ wealth is matched by their power. Appointed for life, federal judges are an elite population removed from the general public by demographics, academic achievement and professional status. They are mostly male, mostly white and mostly 65 or older. Roughly one in five federal appellate judges graduated from Ivy League law schools, according to the Center’s analysis of Federal Judicial Center data.</p>
<p>That says nothing of their influence on the bench. Appeals court judges can&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/30/us/30health.html">uphold</a>&nbsp;or&nbsp;<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/appeals-court-strikes-down-health-care-laws-insurance-mandate/2011/08/12/gIQAAml1BJ_story.html">strike down</a>&nbsp;a president’s signature health care law, determine&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/14/us/texas-universitys-race-admissions-policy-is-debated-before-a-federal-court.html">how universities admit students</a>&nbsp;and even&nbsp;<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/01/14/d-c-circuit-court-strikes-down-net-neutrality-rules/">change the way the Internet works</a>. In the coming months, they will likely play a major role in determining&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/us/appeals-expected-to-block-more-marriage-bans-on-fast-track-to-justices.html">whether same-sex marriage becomes legal</a>&nbsp;nationwide.</p>
<p>“They are the final arbiters in all but the tiny handful of cases that the Supreme Court takes,” said&nbsp;<a href="http://www.law.pitt.edu/people/full-time-faculty/arthur-d-hellman">Arthur Hellman</a>, a University of Pittsburgh law professor and an expert on the federal court system.</p>
<p>They’re also on deck to fill vacancies on the U.S. Supreme Court.</p>
<p>But despite their considerable influence, appeals court judges are largely anonymous to the American people — even to many lawyers. News stories sometimes neglect to name the judges who participate in panels that strike down or uphold multimillion-dollar verdicts.</p>
<p>“They are largely unknown,” said Hellman, noting that most Americans couldn’t identify which circuit their state is in. “And even a pretty savvy lawyer would be hard-pressed to identify more than two or three of the judges.”</p>
<p>Still, even their less-influential decisions that never make headlines can mean the world to the parties involved.</p>
<p><strong>‘Clean hands’?</strong></p>
<p>To save his home, Mountaga Bah needed to win a legal battle with a banking giant.</p>
<p>Faced with the threat of foreclosure, Bah and his wife sued Wells Fargo Bank beginning in 2008, claiming that the bank engaged in predatory lending when it added a second mortgage to the Bowie, Md., house where they live with their three daughters.</p>
<p>Wells Fargo, his original complaint alleged, “took advantage” of Bah — a native of the West African nation of Guinea, who was not fluent in English — by failing to ensure that he would be able to afford the monthly mortgage payments. The complaint alleged the bank’s lax underwriting meant it lacked “clean hands.”</p>
<p>In 2010, a three-judge federal appellate panel confirmed a district court order in favor of Wells Fargo, dismissing Bah’s claims.</p>
<p>At the time, 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Barbara Keenan owned stock in the bank.</p>
<p>&nbsp;“I couldn’t believe it,” Bah told the Center after he learned about the judge’s conflict of interest in March. “That’s not right.”</p>
<p>Bah and his family have been able to stay in the house up until now in part because he filed for bankruptcy in 2009. But he struggles to keep up with mortgage payments to Wells Fargo and now questions the outcome in the case that had been his chance to keep his family home.</p>
<p>“Why she did this?” he said.</p>
<p>Keenan did not comment directly on the Bah foreclosure case, but the clerk of the appeals court, Patricia S. Connor, wrote in a letter that the judge was unaware of the conflict due to a “mistake in the judge’s office at the time the case was assigned.”</p>
<p>Connor noted that the value of Keenan’s holdings in Wells Fargo was $1,900.</p>
<p>Judges who own even one share of stock in a company that appears before them in court are required to disqualify themselves, according to the law.</p>
<p>Stock ownership accounted for 24 of the 26 conflicts that sparked letters from the courts to the parties in the cases where a conflict arose.</p>
<p>Some of the judges in those cases owned as few shares as Keenan while others may have owned as much as $100,000, or possibly more because some did not report value ranges for their stocks as required.</p>
<p>The remaining two conflicts the Center uncovered involved financial ties to law firms that tried cases before them, including the case of 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jay Bybee.</p>
<p>After becoming a judge, Bybee received more than $78,000 worth of legal services from 2009 through 2012 from Davis Polk &amp; Wardwell LLP to defend him&nbsp;for actions in his prior job where he signed the so-called “<a href="http://www.justice.gov/olc/docs/memo-gonzales-aug2002.pdf">torture</a>&nbsp;<a href="http://www.justice.gov/olc/docs/memo-bybee2002.pdf">memos</a>” for the Bush administration’s Justice Department. The memos justified the controversial interrogation method of “waterboarding.”</p>
<p>Despite the help, he did not step aside in a 2010 case of a Guatemalan woman who sought asylum under the Convention Against Torture even though she was represented by a lawyer from the firm. The three-judge panel, including Bybee, affirmed the Justice Department’s denial of asylum, thus ruling against the firm that helped him. He acknowledged his failure to recuse himself in a letter sent to the parties in the case after the Center brought it to the court’s attention.</p>
<p>In addition to the 26 conflicts acknowledged by the judges, the Center found about 20 more cases that raised&nbsp;questions, but did not require automatic disqualification of judges.</p>
<p>Federal judges are required to monitor their financial portfolios so that they know when to recuse themselves from particular cases. But interviews with judges suggest that they aren’t always familiar with the stocks they own and the financial transactions they make.</p>
<p>“I don’t pay much attention to those stocks because it’s handled by a stockbroker,” said 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Peter Fay, one of the 16 judges the Center found who wrongly participated in a case. “I don’t know what he’s doing. … I sit down at the end of the year and say, ‘help me fill out this form.’”</p>
<p>For some judges, their list of investments may fill up just a few lines on their annual financial disclosure form. Other judges, however, have much more complicated&nbsp;portfolios.</p>
<p>One appeals court judge, Helene White of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, filed a financial disclosure in 2012 that included 40 pages of financial holdings and transactions.</p>
<p>The Center found five examples in which White’s holdings overlapped with her caseload. The judge ruled in favor of her financial interests in two of them. Through letters to the involved parties, she admitted to failing to recuse herself in all five of the cases.</p>
<p>One letter said that White did not realize she owned up to $50,000 in Priceline.com stock when she sat on a three-judge panel in 2012 that&nbsp;<a href="http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/12a0316p-06.pdf">affirmed a judgment</a>&nbsp;in favor of the company and other travel businesses. The suit had accused the travel companies of violating local tax laws by not charging occupancy taxes on customers who book hotel rooms online. The ruling set a precedent that could affect cases from other cities nationwide.</p>
<p>“I’m not sympathetic to their forgetting to check,” said&nbsp;<a href="http://www.judicialwatch.org/about/board-of-directors/">Tom Fitton</a>, president of the conservative-leaning Judicial Watch, an organization that promotes transparency in government. “It’s not that hard to do.”</p>
<p>However small the investment — and however unintentional the errors may have been — conflicted judgments loom large for litigants like the Bahs, whose family home hangs in the balance. And they reflect poorly on a court system that’s expected to uphold the law.</p>
<p>“Clearly it raises questions about impartiality and threatens to damage public perception of judges as fair and impartial,” said&nbsp;<a href="http://www.afj.org/about-afj/bios/nan-aron-2">Nan Aron</a>, the president of Alliance for Justice, a liberal advocacy group that focuses on the judicial system.</p>
<p><a href="http://info.law.indiana.edu/faculty-research/faculty-staff/profiles/faculty/geyh-charles-gardner.shtml">Charles Geyh</a>, an Indiana University law professor who specializes in judicial ethics, agreed that the conflicts present a “perception problem” for the federal courts. But he questions whether a reasonable person would think a judge’s decision on the bench would be swayed because they owned stock in a party — especially if the investment is small.</p>
<p>“It looks bad,” Geyh said. But unless a judge is a repeat offender, “I’m hesitant to refer to it as a significant problem.”</p>
<p>Federal court officials downplayed the Center’s findings.</p>
<p>David Sellers, a spokesman for the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.uscourts.gov/FederalCourts/UnderstandingtheFederalCourts/AdministrativeOffice.aspx">Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts</a>, said in an email that while federal judges take their ethical responsibilities seriously,&nbsp;the more than two dozen conflicts identified by the Center are mistakes that can be attributed to human error.</p>
<p>“It appears that a very small number of judges inadvertently were involved in cases in which they had a financial conflict,” he wrote.</p>
<p>And the judges do not rule on cases by themselves. They typically sit with at least two other judges on each case.</p>
<p>Sellers noted that the two dozen conflicted cases represented just 0.02 percent of the 109,000 total cases decided in the U.S. Courts of Appeals over the last three years. Some experts agreed that it’s important to analyze the Center’s findings in a larger context.</p>
<p>However, the Center’s search was not exhaustive. Center reporters manually searched key words from judges’ three most recent annual disclosure reports against a legal database of case rulings from 2010 to 2012. In one instance, the search led reporters to a 2014 case, as well. The analysis may undercount the actual number of times when judges’ financial ties overlapped with their work on the courts.</p>
<p>In addition, other conflicts could be hidden from view because more than 110 of the 255 judges had some information redacted from their financial disclosure reports in 2012, including information about gifts they received, income they earned and investments they held.</p>
<p><strong>A safety net with holes in it</strong></p>
<p>Guillermo Ramirez died at age 58 last year after a long fight with cancer that his family believes he contracted from a DuPont chemical he applied to his Florida strawberry fields. DuPont recalled the fungicide, Benlate, and paid him for his lost crops but said the chemical wouldn’t harm people.</p>
<p>Ramirez sued the company after he was diagnosed with the cancer that started in his kidneys and eventually spread throughout his body.</p>
<p>He did not know that Judge Joel Dubina, one of the three judges assigned to the case when it got to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, owned up to $15,000 worth of stock in DuPont. The panel unanimously affirmed a jury verdict in favor of DuPont in 2011.</p>
<p>Now his family, including his 33-year-old daughter Veronica R. Juan, is reeling from the Center’s discovery.</p>
<p>“To them it might not have been a big deal, but for us?” Juan said. ”There are days we feel we just can’t function correctly because he was such a great person to all of us.”</p>
<p>It is puzzling to her how the judge didn’t disclose the information before taking the case. The conflict, even if it was an accidental oversight as Dubina said it was, seems all the more frustrating to Juan given the large amount of information her parents had to gather for the case, all while her father was seriously ill — so weak he could barely walk.</p>
<p>“He did everything possible to get all the information that was needed and for him to be just let down?” she said. “Who is to say what could have happened if that person wasn’t there?”</p>
<p>Conflicts of interest such as Dubina’s aren’t supposed to fall through the cracks — not in a federal court system equipped with computer databases designed to backstop judges who might fail to identify conflicts on their own.</p>
<p>In September 2006, the Judicial Conference of the United States, a group of judges who oversee and set policy for the U.S. Courts, adopted a mandatory policy requiring all federal courts — except the U.S. Supreme Court — to conduct automated screenings to help flag potential conflicts of interest.</p>
<p>The automated system, which courts began implementing in 2007, followed a number of stories in&nbsp;<em><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/17/AR2006041701296.html">The Washington Post</a></em>&nbsp;that identified instances in which federal judges ruled on cases despite having a financial interest in one of the parties.</p>
<p>The Judicial Conference policy now requires each court to enter judges’ financial conflicts into a database that stores case information, including parties and attorneys. Judges, according to the policy, must provide the court with a list of their financial conflicts. The list must be regularly updated to ensure that nothing is missed as judges make investment transactions during the year.</p>
<p>Each court is required to screen for conflicts “on a regular schedule, including screening new matters as they are filed,” the policy states. And when the database flags a conflict, the court must notify the judge.</p>
<p>The decision on whether to recuse is ultimately up to the judge. Ethics guidelines for federal judges are very clear in some areas such as stock ownership. Beyond the bright-line, one-share rule on stock ownership, a judge must step aside from any proceeding “in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”</p>
<p>Typically, court officials try to prevent judges from getting such cases in the first place by using the database to bypass judges for assignments when their financial interests match up with cases. Doing so makes it unnecessary for judges to decide themselves whether to step aside.</p>
<p>If a conflict is missed by the database, an additional screening step requires judges in all courts to check for potential conflicts after they are randomly assigned to a case.</p>
<p>But the system for flagging conflicts through both automated and manual screening is “not foolproof,” as the 4th Circuit’s&nbsp;<a href="http://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/docs/pdfs/FourthCircuitConflictScreening.pdf?sfvrsn=10">conflict-screening plan</a>&nbsp;states. After all, the automated database is only as good as the information the judges feed into it.</p>
<p>“This is a complex and sometimes fluid area,” said Sellers of the Administrative Office of the U.S Courts. “While software managed by the clerks’ office is very helpful, it is dependent on judges providing up-to-date and accurate information about their financial holdings, on staff entering that information correctly and timely, and on automated systems accurately identifying and processing the entries.”</p>
<p>Take, for example, a stock conflict involving Judge Frank Hull of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Hull sat on a panel in October 2010 that affirmed a lower court ruling in favor of Jacobs Engineering, despite the fact that the judge had purchased up to $15,000 worth of stock in the company several months before the decision.</p>
<p>The conflict slipped by several layers undetected, according to the court, in part because the judge had abbreviated the company name differently than it appeared on the court’s docket. The judge said in a statement that it had slipped through three layers of checks and she was not aware of any potential financial conflict or disqualification when she sat on the case.</p>
<p>Other judges said they ruled on cases not realizing they or their spouses had inherited stocks following a death. Some blamed their investment advisers.</p>
<p>“We’ve got a good system. I thought it worked 100 percent of the time,” 9th Circuit Judge Joseph "Jerome" Farris told the Center after learning that he ruled on a case in which he had a financial interest. “Now you are pointing out it’s only 99.9 percent.”</p>
<p>Still,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.justiceatstake.org/about/jas_staff/bert-brandenburg-executive-director/">Bert Brandenburg</a>, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Justice at Stake nonprofit that focuses on issues in federal and state courts, said that the system cannot continue to regularly have two dozen cases where judges acknowledge a conflict after the fact.</p>
<p>“There has to be a strong system in place to identify those conflicts in advance so the judges can step aside,” he said. “If that was a failure here, then there needs to be a strong look taken at the system.”</p>
<p>Errors do occur, and the judges and court staffers are humans who make mistakes. But ultimately, it’s up to the judges to guard against such errors.</p>
<p>And even when the cases slip through the cracks, judges can always come forward after the fact to report the mistake. They also have another chance to spot problems when they have to file their annual financial disclosure report.</p>
<p>Eleventh Circuit Judge Beverly Martin was one judge who corrected her mistake.</p>
<p>She ruled on a 2010 case in favor of an insurance company represented by her then-husband’s law firm, Sutherland Asbill &amp; Brennan LLP. As a partner in the firm, he could stand to gain financially from the decision, grounds for disqualification from a case.</p>
<p>“I just screwed up. I didn’t do it on purpose,” she said. “My husband had walked out on me the month before. I don’t remember much. I was not living with him. I was devastated. I wasn’t sleeping. I wasn’t eating. I didn’t have my presence of my mind. I shouldn’t have participated in the case.”</p>
<p>She said that although she was not financially supported by him then, she&nbsp;<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1115414-martin-2010-recusal.html">recused herself a month</a>&nbsp;after issuing the decision. The opinion she had worked on was scrapped and the case was taken up again without her.</p>
<p>A new panel of judges came to the same conclusion, affirming the lower court’s decision in favor of the insurance company represented by her now ex-husband’s firm.</p>
<p><strong>Ruling in the gray zone</strong></p>
<p>Beyond the clear conflicts, where a U.S. statute and the code of conduct for judges lay out definitive rules, is a sea of gray. It is generally up to the judges to decide if the outcome of the case could affect their finances, a system lacking transparency and any outside oversight.</p>
<p>The Center found about 20 cases in which judges had financial ties to the parties before them but there was no clear-cut violation of the rules. Those include five instances in which a married couple on the 5th Circuit, Judges Thomas Reavley and Carolyn King, ruled on cases in which parties in the cases were energy companies that paid the couple royalties for extracting minerals from their property.</p>
<p>“I don’t think that’s a problem for him or for me,” said King. “I don’t think there are any recusal issues here.”</p>
<p>Judges are not required to step aside in cases in which they own bonds in one of the parties or receive royalties from a litigant. The investments don’t represent an ownership stake in the company. Gains for the judge would be unlikely if the company’s value soars, though their investments could suffer if the company suffered financially.</p>
<p>However, according to the judicial code of conduct, judges may need to step aside in those cases “if the outcome of the proceeding could substantially affect the value” of the judges’ financial holdings. In other words, it depends on the extent to which the court’s decision could cause the investment to increase or decrease in value.</p>
<p>Judicial ethics experts said bonds and royalties pose little risk for conflicts. Unlike stocks, they would require recusal only if a “reasonable person” — not one of the litigants involved in the case — would question a judge’s impartiality. To meet that threshold, experts said, the bond investments or royalty income would have to be substantial.</p>
<p>Tenth Circuit Judge Bobby Baldock reported earning up to $50,000 in royalties from ConocoPhillips in 2011 and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/opinions/09/09-5143.pdf">ruled on a case</a>&nbsp;involving the company that was sued by its union for allegedly violating a collective bargaining agreement. The decision favored both the company and union in some aspects. The judge said the royalty payment did not require him to recuse himself, according to 10th Circuit Clerk of Court Betsy Shumaker. She said he reviewed the ethical guidelines after the Center asked about the case and is “very comfortable” with his conduct.</p>
<p>In some cases, it’s also acceptable for judges to rule on cases in which they had a clear financial stake as long as they sell the holding —&nbsp;even after filing a ruling, as the Center found in one example.</p>
<p>Ninth Circuit Judge Kim Wardlaw ruled on two such cases in 2011 and 2012 but sold the stocks, according to Clerk of Court Molly Dwyer. In one of the cases, though, she sold the stock a day after&nbsp;<a href="http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/memoranda/2011/07/20/10-35665.pdf">the decision was filed</a>. The ruling went against the company.</p>
<p>“In both cases Judge Wardlaw promptly divested herself of the interest before these cases became final, thereby avoiding the inefficiencies caused by selecting a third judge so late in the process where that judge could not affect the outcome,” Dwyer said. She noted that&nbsp;all the judges on both cases had already voted the same way.</p>
<p>With both of those cases, Wardlaw gained money from the stock sales, according to her disclosure reports.</p>
<p>No information in the public records of the case show that she disclosed the holdings or their subsequent sale to those involved in the case. “Under the particular circumstances of those cases, she did all she was required to do,” Dwyer said.</p>
<p><strong>Few repercussions</strong></p>
<p>Breaking the&nbsp;conflict-of-interest rules can be a blow to a judge’s reputation. “For most people, that’s the worst thing you can tell them,” said King, the 5th Circuit judge.</p>
<p>But that doesn’t mean judges face any serious consequences. In fact, judges who fail to recuse themselves from cases in which they have a financial interest don’t face any formal punishment.</p>
<p>Anyone can file a complaint under the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act if they believe a judge engaged in misconduct. Of the 1,352 complaints closed in 2012 against judges on all types of federal courts nationwide, though, only one led to any corrective action,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.uscourts.gov/uscourts/Statistics/JudicialBusiness/2012/tables/S22Sep12.pdf">court statistics show</a>.</p>
<p>When courts learn about a judge’s missed disqualification after a judgment has been handed down, the courts must notify the parties involved in the case. The parties then have an opportunity to object. The court, without the disqualified judge, decides the legal consequences, if any.</p>
<p>Sometimes a case can be reheard with a new panel of judges.</p>
<p>The 26 cases the Center found moved into that legal limbo when the courts sent out letters. It’s not clear what could happen, as the conflicted judges were not the sole deciding vote in the cases. Still, the people behind the cases, such as the Gables, the Bahs and the Ramirez family, are left waiting and wondering.</p>
<p>Youngblood, the attorney who represented the Gables against Johnson &amp; Johnson, said he’d like their case to be reheard, even if he’s not optimistic it would be reversed.</p>
<p>“I didn’t like the ruling. I mean who likes a ruling that goes against them?” he said. “But I didn’t think the ruling was a fair one even though they tried to make it work according to their legal quotations and citations. I didn’t think it made sense.”</p>
<p>Bah asked for an extension on the deadline to reopen the case. He’s trying to hold on to his home for as long as he can, although the foreclosure still looms.</p>
<p>Francisca Ortega Ramirez and her three children have asked to&nbsp;reopen the case of her husband.</p>
<p>Her daughter, Veronica Juan, who translated from Spanish for her, said no amount of money could replace Guillermo Ramirez, but a financial settlement could have given him some peace of mind before he died. She said her father was worried about how his wife would fare without him.</p>
<p>Even if the case were reopened, it’s a long shot that the family would win. But Juan said her father would have wanted a fair chance at winning — without a conflicted judge — even if it meant the decision didn’t go his way.</p>
<p>&nbsp;“What is fair is fair,” she said. “He was always a fair man.”</p>
<p><em>Henry Kerali contributed to this report.</em></p>
Guillermo Ramirez did not live long enough to learn that one of the judges in his case against DuPont owned stock in the chemical company. He died last year of cancer that he and his family believed he got from a DuPont fungicide that he had applied to his strawberry fields. Now his family is wondering whether his case will be reopened due to the Center’s findings about the judge’s conflict of interest in the case. His wife, Francisca Ramirez, and children, Veronica Juan, Abdiel Ramirez and&nbsp;Erika Baca (clockwise from left), visit his grave in Tampa, Fla., in April 2014.
Reity O'Brienhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/reity-obrienKytja Weirhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/kytja-weirChris Younghttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/chris-youngInformation on judges' disclosures often blacked outhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/node/14634More than 40 percent of federal appellate judges had portions of financial disclosures blacked out.Judges&#039; assets often obscuredLaw_Crime;Social philosophy;Judge;United States federal judge;Ethics in Government Act;Redaction;United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit2014-05-19T12:19:51-04:002014-04-28T00:01:00-04:00<p>A U.S. Courts of Appeals judge earned more than $73,000 outside the courtroom in 2012 and took multiple trips on someone else’s dime in the two prior years.</p>
<p>But the mandatory financial disclosure reports of 9th Circuit Judge Carlos Bea do not make clear how he earned the money or who footed the bill for five of his trips. That’s because the information was blacked out, hiding everything from a board membership to information about some of his investments.</p>
<p>Bea, who declined to discuss his redactions via the clerk of court, is not the only federal appellate judge who had text obscured from his report. Of&nbsp;255 judges on the second-highest courts in the nation, the financial disclosure reports of 111 of them had portions that were blacked out,&nbsp;according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis.</p>
<p>If visible, the&nbsp;blacked-out information would include details about gifts they received, income they earned and investments they held. Additionally, some judges have failed to disclose the names of the companies that pay them royalties for pulling oil and gas from their property, the employment of their spouses or even the value of their investments.</p>
<p>Such gaps and deliberate redactions make it difficult for the public to determine whether the judges’ financial and community ties may improperly overlap with their work on the courts. Using the disclosure reports, the Center <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/04/28/14630/federal-judges-plead-guilty">found 26 examples in which federal appellate judges violated the law by ruling on cases in which&nbsp;they had a financial interest</a>.</p>
<p>Those ties were visible. It’s not clear what information could be hidden behind the redacted text or missing information.</p>
<p>Judges are responsible for filling out the forms annually, so missing or incomplete information is their responsibility. Yet they and court officials say redactions are necessary to protect judges whose high-profile and often controversial rulings can leave them vulnerable to security threats.</p>
<p>“The judiciary is acutely aware of the importance of balancing the public’s right to know with that of the safety of a judge and his or her family,” said David Sellers, a spokesman for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.</p>
<p>But some redactions border on the absurd. For example, one judge’s disclosure removes the words “farm located at” from a property listing — a redaction that was neither requested by the judge nor seemingly necessary to protect him from threats.</p>
<p><a href="https://cumberland.samford.edu/faculty/william-g-ross">William G. Ross</a>, a Samford University law professor in Alabama who specializes in judicial ethics, said it’s not easy for the courts to determine when it’s appropriate to black out certain information. But while each redaction request should be evaluated independently, he said, litigants have a profound interest in knowing what’s in judges’ financial disclosures.</p>
<p><strong>The missing information</strong></p>
<p>A GAO&nbsp;<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1064278-2004-gao-report-on-judicial-redactions.html">report</a>&nbsp;from 2004 found nearly 600 redactions on federal judges’ reports from&nbsp;1999 to&nbsp;2002. During the three-year period, the agency reported, roughly 90 percent of the 661 redaction requests made by federal judges were granted by the judiciary. The redactions revealed in the report&nbsp;<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40982-2004Aug4.html">raised concerns</a>&nbsp;among judicial ethics experts that the judiciary was being too lax in accepting redaction requests.</p>
<p>A decade later, the Center’s review of similar forms found that some appellate judges’ financial disclosures included just one or two redactions, while others had dozens. First Circuit Judge Michael Boudin, for example, had a total of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1061182-1-boudin-michael-2012.html">189 redactions in his 19-page report</a>. In most cases, it appeared to be just a letter or two that was obscured from his investments.</p>
<p>Of the judges whose reports did contain redactions, more than nine appeared on average per report, according to the Center’s analysis.</p>
<p>The name of a university that paid into 2nd Circuit Judge Jose Cabranes’ pension plan starting in 1984 was removed. The source that reimbursed 3rd Circuit Judge Anthony Scirica for a 10-day teaching gig in Italy is blacked out. Redactions hide the source of income for 7th Circuit Judge Ann Williams’ husband, a banking executive who was also a registered lobbyist at the time.</p>
<p>Neither the judges, nor the court system, are required to explain the reasons for the redactions.</p>
<p>The post-Watergate Ethics in Government Act of 1978 required federal judges, along with legislative and executive branch officials, to publicly report their financial assets and those of&nbsp; their spouses and dependent children each year. But in 1998, Congress allowed certain sensitive information to be redacted from judges’ reports.</p>
<p>Such information can be removed either by request of the judge or by court staff if it is considered to be excess personal information not required by statute. Such information may include the names of family members, account numbers or street addresses.</p>
<p>Some information is removed because of a specific threat, Sellers said, while other information is blacked out because of the risk it could pose.</p>
<p>Judges’ redaction requests must be approved by a committee of the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.uscourts.gov/FederalCourts/JudicialConference.aspx">U.S. Judicial Conference</a>. Committee officials consult with the U.S. Marshals Service on a case-by-case basis to ensure that the judges have demonstrated a clear connection between a security risk and the information they seek to redact, Sellers said.</p>
<p>Judges do not routinely request redactions, yet such requests are almost always granted. Of the nearly 4,400 judicial financial disclosure reports released to the public in 2011, Sellers said, 154 judges’ reports were partially redacted for security reasons upon judges’ requests. Only four requests due to security issues were denied.</p>
<p>Sellers said security redactions are most commonly granted when information reveals the physical location of judges or their family members. Other requests, he said, are approved when redactions are based on “specific threats,” including those relating to identity theft.</p>
<p><strong>Security threats</strong></p>
<p>Judges do have legitimate security concerns. In 1989, 11th Circuit Judge Robert Vance was killed by a mail bomb delivered to his Alabama home.</p>
<p>The U.S. Marshals Service provides security for all federal judges, including response to threats 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Federal judges can also choose to have security systems installed in their homes at the government’s expense, according to the U.S. Marshals.</p>
<p>But another way of protecting&nbsp;judges is to hide their personal information.</p>
<p>In her 2012 financial disclosure, 7th Circuit Judge Ilana Rovner redacted the names of three different organizations — two nonprofits and a university — where she serves on boards. She also blacked out the source of a $1,800 gift she described as a “Partial Honorary Membership.” She told the Center the gift was a membership to a private social club.</p>
<p>A few years ago, Rovner said she found a man waiting for her at the social club who previously had a case before her. “In strong terms,” she said, “he wanted to know why I ruled against him.”</p>
<p>After the incident, Rovner said the U.S. Marshals suggested that she redact certain information from her financial disclosure, including the club membership. She also has the names of her board memberships blacked out, she said, because people could find out the locations and times of board meetings, then confront her.</p>
<p>“The public has every right to know every stock I own,” Rovner said. “But they don’t have the right to know where I go after hours.”</p>
<p>Rovner said she understands that threats come with the territory of being a federal judge. “I’m probably being overly cautious,” the judge added.</p>
<p>But, she said, she doesn’t think most people realize how often she and other judges receive “very odd messages” from people unhappy with their rulings.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.law.pitt.edu/people/full-time-faculty/arthur-d-hellman">Arthur Hellman</a>, a University of Pittsburgh law professor who studies the federal courts, said the security threats federal judges face are not imagined.</p>
<p>“There are threats, and they are taken seriously,” he said. “Judges are sentencing dangerous criminals. And there are lots of crazy people in our society.”</p>
<p>Since December, the Judicial Conference has withheld 1st Circuit Judge Norman Stahl’s 2012 disclosure from the Center for such security concerns, according to Kristina Usry of the U.S. Courts financial disclosure office. The conference is considering redacting Stahl’s entire form as a result of violent threats against the judge from a stalker, she said.</p>
<p><strong>Unrequested redactions</strong></p>
<p>But sometimes even judges can’t explain why their financial disclosures include redactions. Eighth Circuit Judge Diana Murphy’s 2010 financial disclosure included redactions that obscured some of her investment descriptions, as well as the amount and value of every investment.</p>
<p>“I don’t know why that would be,” Murphy told the Center. “I did not ask for the redactions.”</p>
<p>Murphy said she previously had some death threats over the years but seemed surprised that the values of her investments would be blacked out.</p>
<p>In fact, most of the redactions on judges’ reports were not requested by the judges, Sellers said. Most of them are made by court officials when judges report information that is not required by statute, such as spouse names, social security numbers and home addresses.</p>
<p>However, he said, such redactions do not involve issues related to conflicts or possible recusal by a judge.</p>
<p>It is difficult for the public to verify that, though, when the information isn’t visible.</p>
<p>But even beyond the potential for conflicts, some redactions don’t seem to have any obvious reason for being made.</p>
<p>A law clerk for 9th Circuit Judge Edward Leavy was puzzled when the Center asked about the redaction in the judge’s 2012 financial disclosure that blacked out part of the description of real estate located in Marion County, Ore. Reports from prior years had the words "Farm located at" in that space.</p>
<p>“It’s a family property where his son raises hops, so I don’t know why that would have been redacted,” said Kathleen Dodds, a longtime law clerk for the judge who helps Leavy fill out the annual financial reports.</p>
<p>She added that the judge wanted it to be known that he did not request the information to be removed. Dodds said court officials probably made the redaction because they considered the information “over-reporting.”</p>
<p>But the entry didn’t have an address, Dodds said, and much of the county is farmland. “So there’s no clear-cut reason why that was redacted,” she said.</p>
Reity O'Brienhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/reity-obrienKytja Weirhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/kytja-weirChris Younghttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/chris-youngState judges: We don't need no stinkin' disclosurehttp://www.publicintegrity.org/node/13990Officials defend limited financial disclosure for high court judges. States pan Center surveySupreme Court of the United States;Judge2014-05-19T12:19:51-04:002013-12-13T06:00:00-05:00<p>State&nbsp;officials blasted&nbsp;The Center for Public Integrity’s report on how difficult it is to learn about the financial holdings of state supreme court judges, while the reaction from some newspapers was a call for reform.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13808/state-supreme-court-judges-reveal-scant-financial-information">nine-month investigation</a> reported that 42 states and the District of Columbia received a failing grade in a Center evaluation of disclosure requirements for high court judges. Not a single state did better than the federal government when it comes to revealing the financial holdings of top judges.</p>
<p>Stories appeared in more than 50 news outlets in more than 40 states and in several national publications.&nbsp;It also was featured on C-SPAN and numerous radio stations.</p>
<p><strong>No trouble here</strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13743/montana-earns-f-judicial-financial-disclosure">Montana</a> has zero disclosure for judges, one of three states (the other two being Idaho and Utah) with that dubious distinction. Despite that, Chief Justice Mike McGrath didn’t see a problem.</p>
<p>He <a href="http://www.greatfallstribune.com/viewart/20131206/NEWS01/312060030/Montana-chief-justice-Financial-disclosures-unnecessary">told the Associated Press</a> that by following a strictly enforced code of judicial conduct, the court has “moved sort of beyond mere disclosure.”</p>
<p>“We have a code that is quite strict and it specifically requires judges to disqualify themselves if they have any kind of an economic interest, or any member of their family has an economic interest,” McGrath said.</p>
<p>It’s basically the “trust me” argument, which was fairly common among critics.</p>
<p>The <em>Great Falls Tribune</em>, <a href="http://www.greatfallstribune.com/article/20131210/OPINION/312100005/Supreme-Court-should-disclose-data?nclick_check=1">in an editorial</a>, wasn’t so trusting, arguing that “transparency would be enhanced by requiring Montana’s Supreme Court judges, the most powerful state judges, to disclose their financial interests and those of members of their immediate family.”</p>
<p>The <em>Billings Gazette</em> agreed. Its <a href="http://billingsgazette.com/news/opinion/editorial/gazette-opinion/gazette-opinion-building-confidence-in-courts-of-last-resort/article_efb93625-8a0b-52cf-83b0-6c2a8282c8b9.html">editorial</a> urged the state legislature to enact laws so judges face the same disclosure requirements as other statewide officials.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13732/iowa-earns-f-judicial-financial-disclosure">Iowa</a>&nbsp;officials were <a href="http://thegazette.com/2013/12/06/iowa-legislators-lawyers-scoff-at-integrity-grade/">similarly unperturbed.</a>&nbsp;The state earned 17.5 points out of 100.</p>
<p>“The Center’s report and rating as applied to Iowa judges appears to be a solution in search of a problem,” said Guy Cook, president of the Iowa State Bar Association and a Des Moines lawyer. Sen. Rob Hogg, chairman of Senate Judiciary Committee, said the state’s court system is of the “highest integrity.”</p>
<p>Iowa had one of the oddest rules — judges “are allowed to receive gifts worth any amount on their wedding or 25th and 50th wedding anniversaries.” Cook told an Iowa newspaper that the rule applies to employees of the judicial branch, not judges.</p>
<p>We double-checked. He’s wrong.</p>
<p>John Goerdt, Iowa’s deputy state court administrator, confirmed to the Center that the section of the code of conduct clearly refers to judges. Cook did not respond to a phone call, and <a href="http://thegazette.com/2013/12/06/iowa-legislators-lawyers-scoff-at-integrity-grade/"><em>The Gazette</em></a> deleted his comment.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13758/south-dakota-earns-f-judicial-financial-disclosure">South Dakota</a> Chief Justice David Gilbertson also said the Center’s report was “a solution looking for a problem,” according to <em><a href="http://www.argusleader.com/article/20131204/NEWS/312040052/S-D-most-other-states-fail-judicial-disclosure">The Argus Leader</a></em>.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13757/south-carolina-earns-f-judicial-financial-disclosure">South Carolina</a> Chief Justice Jean Toal called the Center’s study “very flawed,” according to <em><a href="http://www.thestate.com/2013/12/04/3137683/report-gives-sc-an-f-for-disclosure.html">The State</a></em>. “That is a viewpoint shared by every chief justice in the country,” she told the Columbia newspaper.</p>
<p>The state scored 40 points in the survey.</p>
<p>Chip Campsen, a Republican state senator from Charleston who sits on the state’s Judicial Merit Selection Commission, told <em><a href="http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20131204/PC1610/131209763/1009/national-report-highlights-strengths-and-weaknesses-of-state-justices-x2019-financial-disclosures&amp;source=RSS">The Post and Courier</a></em> that an internal vetting system and the judicial code of conduct are adequate checks on potential judicial corruption.</p>
<p>“It’s not just the wild, wild West with judges sitting there unimpeded, making rulings on cases that they may have an interest with,” Campsen said. “There are protections in place.”</p>
<p>The Center gave South Carolina a failing grade largely because the materials available to the commission — documents that shed light on Supreme Court justices’ personal finances — are sealed. The information that is made public does not shed much light on judges’ personal finances.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>Attacking the messenger</strong></p>
<p>Bill Gang, spokesman for the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13745/nevada-earns-f-judicial-financial-disclosure">Nevada</a>&nbsp;Supreme Court (42.5 points),&nbsp;<a href="http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2013/dec/04/nevada-among-many-states-get-f-grade-rules-judicia/">called the report</a>&nbsp;"somewhat misleading” in the&nbsp;<em>Las Vegas Sun</em>.</p>
<p>“The fact that 84 percent of the state court systems received a failing grade while none received a grade higher than C suggests that the test is not neutral,” he said.</p>
<p>He did not elaborate on what he meant by “neutral.”</p>
<p>He also critiqued the Center’s point system that sought information about the finances of judges’ spouses and dependent children, saying Nevada could not pass because it does not seek such information.</p>
<p>Judicial experts told the Center that family members’ financial interests are crucial to understanding the full picture of judges’ finances.</p>
<p>In the&nbsp;<em>Concord Monitor</em>,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13746/new-hampshire-earns-f-judicial-financial-disclosure">New Hampshire</a>&nbsp;(48 points) state courts spokeswoman Carole Alfano&nbsp;<a href="http://www.concordmonitor.com/news/localstate/9617728-95/center-for-public-integrity-gives-nh-an-f-for-supreme-court-financial-disclosures">made a similar point</a>&nbsp;about the alarming failure rate.</p>
<p>"New Hampshire has strong disclosure, and no one currently is asking for the judicial forms to be changed,” she said. “If CPI had taken a different tack on it — maybe, ‘Here’s some suggestions we have’— the court may have listened. But the flat-out F isn’t helpful, and it isn’t terribly legitimate.”</p>
<p>The Center doesn’t advocate for reforms; we report what we find. And we did share our results with the court prior to publication.</p>
<p>New Jersey’s court spokeswoman Winnie Comfort&nbsp;<a href="http://www.law.com/jsp/nj/PubArticleNJ.jsp?id=1202630726496&amp;thepage=3&amp;slreturn=20131111113809">told the&nbsp;<em>New Jersey Law Journal</em></a>&nbsp;there were two "red flags" that cast doubt on the report’s findings.</p>
<p>Points were subtracted for not asking about judges' outside income even though the New Jersey Constitution prohibits outside employment for judges, she said. The Center did give the state credit for reporting judges’ income because they disclose their court jobs, but we docked points because judges were not required to disclose the amounts of their judicial salaries.</p>
<p>In addition, Comfort said the state was wrongly criticized for asking only about real estate in Atlantic City, a question intended to screen out conflicts relating to the heavily regulated casino industry.</p>
<p>Comfort noted the form does seek information on rental&nbsp;income, regardless of the location of the property. The Center updated the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13747/new-jersey-earns-f-judicial-financial-disclosure">New Jersey</a>&nbsp;survey to note the inclusion, though the change did not result in a higher&nbsp;score (34 points).</p>
<p>The information sought is limited, though, and does not cover property that is not rented but lies outside of Atlantic City. Land that is being developed or farmed, for example, would not need to be reported if no rent was being collected.</p>
<p><strong>Room for improvement?</strong></p>
<p>There were also a few calls for reform.</p>
<p>“<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13757/south-carolina-earns-f-judicial-financial-disclosure">South Carolina</a>'s judicial ethics standards are clearly lacking,”&nbsp;<a href="http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20131208/PC1002/131209448/1021/bolster-judicial-disclosures&amp;source=RSS">noted&nbsp;<em>The Post and Courier</em></a>&nbsp;in an editorial. “They should address conflicts that might arise from judges' investments and financial liabilities, just as those for elected officials should. Adjustments to state requirements should be made as soon as possible.”</p>
<p>Another appeal for more transparent state judiciaries came from&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13741/mississippi-earns-f-judicial-financial-disclosure">Mississippi</a>, a state that has seen the confidence in its system “rocked by judicial bribery scandals.”</p>
<p>A columnist from&nbsp;<em>The Clarion-Ledger&nbsp;</em>in Jackson&nbsp;<a href="http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20131205/COL0603/312050022/Judges-gifts-fairness-don-t-mix?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CHome%7Cp">wrote</a>, “We hope judges will always do the honorable thing and step aside when there is a hint of a possible conflict, but we need to have strong requirements in place to ensure those in the judiciary aren’t unduly influenced by outside interests.”</p>
<p>The online&nbsp;<a href="http://newmexico.watchdog.org/19869/new-mexico-supreme-court-gets-an-f-in-disclosures/">New Mexico Watchdog</a>&nbsp;suggested that the legislature consider addressing a gap in state law that an official said limited&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13748/new-mexico-earns-f-judicial-financial-disclosure">New Mexico</a>&nbsp;from posting the state’s disclosures online, as the Center noted in the report.</p>
<p>The gaps in state disclosure requirements are easily correctable, noted an&nbsp;<a href="http://thetimes-tribune.com/opinion/give-public-data-to-judge-1.1596966">editorial</a>&nbsp;from&nbsp;<em>The Times-Tribune&nbsp;</em>in Scranton, Pa. The piece urged&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13755/pennsylvania-earns-d-judicial-financial-disclosure">Pennsylvania</a>&nbsp;Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille to “embrace the opportunity, given a long series of scandals that have diminished public confidence in the courts.”</p>
<p>The<em>&nbsp;<a href="http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/2013/12/texas_gets_an_f_center_for_pub.php">Houston Press</a></em>&nbsp;asked why states don’t simply adopt the federal rule.</p>
<p>“Besides the necessity of the public trust in the state judicial system — which far more people participate in than the federal court system — there simply cannot be differing sets of rules for players in the judicial system depending on if one is chummy with a judge (most people aren't),” the paper wrote. “The&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13760/texas-earns-f-judicial-financial-disclosure">Texas</a>&nbsp;Legislature and the Texas Ethics Commission are on notice.”</p>
<p><strong>Other comments</strong></p>
<p>The&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13725/district-columbia-earns-f-judicial-financial-disclosure">District of Columbia</a>&nbsp;(15 points) has great disclosure rules. Unfortunately, the public can only see two of the 10 sections on the forms. In a story on NPR affiliate WAMU-FM, a court representative&nbsp;<a href="http://wamu.org/news/13/12/04/dc_received_failing_grade_for_financial_disclosures_by_judges">said it’s not the fault of the judges</a>. Congressional statute governs what information the district makes public.</p>
<p>That was a common refrain in a number of states, which note that changes to financial disclosure requirements are left to state legislatures.</p>
<p>An&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13717/alabama-earns-f-judicial-financial-disclosure">Alabama</a>&nbsp;ethics official&nbsp;<a href="http://blog.al.com/wire/2013/12/center_for_public_integrity_gi.html">made a good point</a>, using an old Center study to refute the new Center study. When grading state legislatures, researchers in 2009 ranked the requirements tops in the nation, said Jim Sumner, director of the Ethics Commission, in the&nbsp;<em>Birmingham News</em>. Justices are required to fill out the same report.</p>
<p>Alabama got 45.5 points.</p>
<p>The standards were a bit tougher this time because the Center opted to use federal disclosure forms as the basis for comparison. The federal forms, however, still aren’t that great — scoring 84 points. Judges report investments in a wide range and the forms are not available online.</p>
<p>California, which was&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13808/state-supreme-court-judges-reveal-scant-financial-information">featured prominently</a>&nbsp;in the Center’s story, took issue with the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13721/california-earns-c-judicial-financial-disclosure">state summary</a>, noting that one conflict really shouldn’t have been considered a conflict.</p>
<p>California judges are not required to disqualify themselves from cases when they have a financial interest in a company that files a “friend-of-the-court” brief. Cathal Conneely told the Center in an email that such briefs might be abused by attorneys seeking to remove judges from particular cases.</p>
<p>In Connecticut’s&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13723/connecticut-earns-f-judicial-financial-disclosure">state summary</a>, the Center wrote that the state “does not require judges to report any income information for spouses or dependent children.”</p>
<p>Melissa Farley, executive director of the external affairs division of the Connecticut Judicial Branch, pointed out that the state does require judges to report financial information, including income, about their spouses and dependent children, but the information is not made public.</p>
<p>Family members’ financial information “is confidential unless there is an investigation started by the Supreme Court or the Judicial Review Council,” Farley said.</p>
<p>The Center only gave credit for publicly available information.</p>
<p>After publication, we learned that&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13718/alaska-earns-f-judicial-financial-disclosure">Alaska</a>&nbsp;(58.3 points) requires judges to fill out a second form that contains much of the same information as the one we based our grade on. We’ve included those&nbsp;<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/889226-ak-court-filings-2012.html">2012 reports here</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13756/rhode-island-earns-f-judicial-financial-disclosure">Rhode Island</a>’s court spokesman Craig Berke told the&nbsp;<em><a href="http://www.providencejournal.com/breaking-news/content/20131208-political-scene-r.i.-supreme-court-gets-an-f-for-financial-disclosure.ece">Providence Journal</a></em>&nbsp;he was unsurprised by the Center’s findings, but questioned the project’s utility.&nbsp;The state scored 56.5.</p>
<p>“Rhode Island ranked 13th from the top and still it got an ‘F’,” Berke said. “We don’t understand the methodology, and we are not sure of its usefulness.”</p>
<p>John Marion, executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island, said there is “definitely room for improvement” in the Supreme Court’s current system but it&nbsp;"still has greater breadth and consistency than most.”</p>
<p>“But that may come at the cost of its depth, ” he added.</p>
<p>In&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13762/vermont-earns-f-judicial-financial-disclosure">Vermont</a>&nbsp;(32 points), the findings didn’t surprise advocates who pointed out to&nbsp;<a href="http://www.wcax.com/story/24186647/vt-gets-f-on-financial-disclosure-for-supreme-court-justices">WCAX 13</a>&nbsp;that the state&nbsp;is one of&nbsp;four that does not require financial reporting for statewide political candidates.</p>
<p>"It's far more important, frankly, to concentrate on candidates running for state office here," said Paul Burns of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group.</p>
<p>The Center found that&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13766/wisconsin-earns-f-judicial-financial-disclosure">Wisconsin</a>&nbsp;Justice Ann Walsh Bradley had participated in a 2011 case involving Nestle USA. In response, Bradley told the&nbsp;<em><a href="http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/234468661.html">Milwaukee Journal&nbsp;Sentinel</a></em>&nbsp;that she owned stock in the multinational Nestle based in Switzerland, not the Nestle USA named in the lawsuit.</p>
<p>“I am in full compliance with our code of judicial conduct," she said. "This investment is a tiny, tiny piece of a multinational company and its stock is in my IRA. And I do not participate in the management of the stock."</p>
<p>Nestle USA is a subsidiary of the Nestle company in which Bradley owns stock, meaning it is one and the same company, according to&nbsp;Nestle spokesman Ian Metcalfe.</p>
Montana Supreme Court&nbsp;Chief Justice Mike McGrath
John Dunbarhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/john-dunbarReity O'Brienhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/reity-obrienKytja Weirhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/kytja-weirChris Younghttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/chris-youngIndiana earns ‘F’ for judicial financial disclosurehttp://www.publicintegrity.org/node/13731We graded each state on judicial financial disclosure.Indiana2014-05-19T12:19:51-04:002013-12-04T00:01:00-05:00<div class="stateSupremeCourtDisclosure">
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<div class="stateFace">O</div>
<p class="intro">The Center for Public Integrity <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13808/state-supreme-court-judges-reveal-scant-financial-information">evaluated the disclosure rules</a> for
judges in the highest state courts nationwide. The <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13809/methodology-how-we-graded-state-supreme-court-financial-disclosure">level of disclosure</a> in
the 50 states and the District of Columbia was poor, with <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13805/how-states-scored-judicial-financial-disclosures">43 receiving failing grades</a>,
making it difficult for the public to identify potential conflicts of interest
on the bench. Despite the lack of information in the public records, the
Center’s investigation found nearly three dozen <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13815/justices-ruled-their-own-financial-interests">conflicts</a>,
questionable gifts and entanglements among top judges around the country.
Here’s what the Center found in Indiana:</p>
<div class="profile">
<div class="gradeContainer" data-state="Indiana"></div>
<h4>Strengths:</h4>
<p>Indiana asks for comprehensive disclosure of the gifts and reimbursements
its judges receive. The Hoosier State’s high court must disclose the source
of gifts received by all members of their households, along with a description
and the value of the item. Additionally, the state asks for judges’ sources
of income beyond their judicial salaries. Judges must disclose their spouses’
employers, too.</p>
<h4>Weaknesses:</h4>
<p>Indiana seeks little information about the financial investments and liabilities
of its high court’s jurists. The state requires judges only to name the
businesses in which they or their family members own $10,000 or more worth
of stock, a particularly high threshold. Judges need not report any household
debt.</p>
<h4>Highlights:</h4>
<p>In 2012, four out of Indiana’s five Supreme Court justices reported receiving
tickets to the Indianapolis 500 from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Some
judges reported that the tickets to the state’s popular sporting event
were worth roughly $180-200, while one judge estimated that the tickets
he received were valued at $500.</p>
</div>
<div class="reports" data-state="Indiana"></div>
<div class="card" data-state="Indiana"></div>
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<script src="//d32kn01rfn0r98.cloudfront.net/apps/2013/07/statescdisclosure/script.min.js"
type="text/javascript"></script>Chris Zubak-Skeeshttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/chris-zubak-skeesReity O'Brienhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/reity-obrienKytja Weirhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/kytja-weirChris Younghttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/chris-youngNew Jersey earns ‘F’ for judicial financial disclosurehttp://www.publicintegrity.org/node/13747We graded each state on judicial financial disclosure.New Jersey2014-05-19T12:19:51-04:002013-12-04T00:01:00-05:00<div class="stateSupremeCourtDisclosure">
<div class="page">
<div class="stateFace">e</div>
<p class="intro">The Center for Public Integrity <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13808/state-supreme-court-judges-reveal-scant-financial-information">evaluated the disclosure rules</a> for
judges in the highest state courts nationwide. The <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13809/methodology-how-we-graded-state-supreme-court-financial-disclosure">level of disclosure</a> in
the 50 states and the District of Columbia was poor, with <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13805/how-states-scored-judicial-financial-disclosures">43 receiving failing grades</a>,
making it difficult for the public to identify potential conflicts of interest
on the bench. Despite the lack of information in the public records, the
Center’s investigation found nearly three dozen <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13815/justices-ruled-their-own-financial-interests">conflicts</a>,
questionable gifts and entanglements among top judges around the country.
Here’s what the Center found in New Jersey:</p>
<div class="profile">
<div class="gradeContainer" data-state="New Jersey"></div>
<h4>Strengths:</h4>
<p>New Jersey is one of the few states to seek financial information about
both the judge’s spouse and dependent children for all questions on its
forms. The state also has a three-member advisory committee to respond
to inquiries from judges about how to interpret the judicial financial
reporting requirements.</p>
<h4>Weaknesses:</h4>
<p>Similar to 11 other states, the Garden State has a self-policing form
of oversight, with the Supreme Court having ultimate say in disciplinary
matters of judges even if a justice is involved. Furthermore, the Advisory
Committee on Judicial Conduct must ask permission of the Supreme Court
to investigate if a Supreme Court member’s ethics are questioned. Still,
the court has done so, disciplining one of its own. In 2007, the justices
censured fellow justice Roberto Rivera-Soto after the ethical conduct committee
found he had improperly used his standing in a legal dispute involving
his son and a high school classmate. He continued to serve on the bench
until 2011. The state also does not seek any information about judges’
financial liabilities. New Jersey has one of the highest reporting thresholds
for gifts. Judges only have to disclose gifts worth more than $1,000 without
specifying their exact value.</p>
<h4>Highlights:</h4>
<p>The state asks for the disclosure of real estate holdings, but with a caveat: It primarily seeks information about real estate situated in Atlantic City — and only for properties that are not the judges’ primary residences. Atlantic City, with just 10.75 square-miles of land, represents less than 0.2 percent of all the land in the state. The forms also ask for rental income information, regardless of the location of the property.</p>
<p><em> This summary has been updated to reflect state requirements for disclosure of rental income.</em></p>
</div>
<div class="reports" data-state="New Jersey"></div>
<div class="card" data-state="New Jersey"></div>
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<script src="//d32kn01rfn0r98.cloudfront.net/apps/2013/07/statescdisclosure/script.min.js"
type="text/javascript"></script>Chris Zubak-Skeeshttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/chris-zubak-skeesReity O'Brienhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/reity-obrienKytja Weirhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/kytja-weirChris Younghttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/chris-youngVirginia earns ‘F’ for judicial financial disclosurehttp://www.publicintegrity.org/node/13763We graded each state on judicial financial disclosure.Virginia2014-05-19T12:19:51-04:002013-12-04T00:01:00-05:00<div class="stateSupremeCourtDisclosure">
<div class="page">
<div class="stateFace">s</div>
<p class="intro">The Center for Public Integrity <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13808/state-supreme-court-judges-reveal-scant-financial-information">evaluated the disclosure rules</a> for
judges in the highest state courts nationwide. The <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13809/methodology-how-we-graded-state-supreme-court-financial-disclosure">level of disclosure</a> in
the 50 states and the District of Columbia was poor, with <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13805/how-states-scored-judicial-financial-disclosures">43 receiving failing grades</a>,
making it difficult for the public to identify potential conflicts of interest
on the bench. Despite the lack of information in the public records, the
Center’s investigation found nearly three dozen <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13815/justices-ruled-their-own-financial-interests">conflicts</a>,
questionable gifts and entanglements among top judges around the country.
Here’s what the Center found in Virginia:</p>
<div class="profile">
<div class="gradeContainer" data-state="Virginia"></div>
<h4>Strengths:</h4>
<p>Virginia requires its Supreme Court justices to disclose the types of
businesses they or their spouses have represented before government agencies.
Most judges have previous careers as attorneys — or are married to practicing
lawyers — so this requirement can uncover potential conflicts of interest
on the bench.</p>
<h4>Weaknesses:</h4>
<p>Virginia seeks at least some information about all six disclosure categories
the Center evaluated, but it falls short in the level of specificity required.
The commonwealth asks its Supreme Court justices — along with all other
public office holders — to disclose sources of non-judicial income, but
only if the income is in excess of $10,000. Filers must describe the type
and issuer of their financial holdings in detail, however the value of
such investments are indicated only in broad ranges. Liabilities need only
be reported if they exceed a $10,000 threshold, and the state form does
not ask for the name of each creditor.</p>
<h4>Highlights:</h4>
<p>At least two of Virginia’s Supreme Court justices’ spouses practice law
in the state. Justice Elizabeth McClanahan is married to
<a href="http://www.pennstuart.com/att-b-geisler.html">Byrum
Geisler</a>, an estate planning specialist who works in the Abington office
of PennStuart, the firm where McClanahan was partner before taking the
bench. Justice S. Bernard Goodwyn is married to <a href="http://www.hunton.com/Sharon_Goodwyn/">Sharon
Goodwyn</a>, a labor and employment attorney for Hunton &amp; Williams,
in Norfolk, who is licensed to practice before the state’s high court.
Katya Herndon, a spokeswoman for the state’s judicial system, told the
Center that in cases when a justice’s spouse — or an attorney from a spouse’s
firm — comes before the court, that justice must recuse.</p>
</div>
<div class="reports" data-state="Virginia"></div>
<div class="card" data-state="Virginia"></div>
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<script src="//d32kn01rfn0r98.cloudfront.net/apps/2013/07/statescdisclosure/script.min.js"
type="text/javascript"></script>Chris Zubak-Skeeshttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/chris-zubak-skeesReity O'Brienhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/reity-obrienKytja Weirhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/kytja-weirChris Younghttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/chris-youngIowa earns ‘F’ for judicial financial disclosurehttp://www.publicintegrity.org/node/13732We graded each state on judicial financial disclosure.Iowa2014-05-19T12:19:51-04:002013-12-04T00:01:00-05:00<div class="stateSupremeCourtDisclosure">
<div class="page">
<div class="stateFace">L</div>
<p class="intro">The Center for Public Integrity <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13808/state-supreme-court-judges-reveal-scant-financial-information">evaluated the disclosure rules</a> for
judges in the highest state courts nationwide. The <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13809/methodology-how-we-graded-state-supreme-court-financial-disclosure">level of disclosure</a> in
the 50 states and the District of Columbia was poor, with <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13805/how-states-scored-judicial-financial-disclosures">43 receiving failing grades</a>,
making it difficult for the public to identify potential conflicts of interest
on the bench. Despite the lack of information in the public records, the
Center’s investigation found nearly three dozen <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13815/justices-ruled-their-own-financial-interests">conflicts</a>,
questionable gifts and entanglements among top judges around the country.
Here’s what the Center found in Iowa:</p>
<div class="profile">
<div class="gradeContainer" data-state="Iowa"></div>
<h4>Strengths:</h4>
<p>It’s tough to find any strengths in Iowa’s financial disclosure requirements.
The state, according to The Center for Public Integrity’s grading system,
ties for fourth from the bottom. However, it does require that judges disclose
some information about their investments and income earned beyond their
judicial salaries.</p>
<h4>Weaknesses:</h4>
<p>Iowa lost 40 points for not requiring judges to report gifts, reimbursements
or liabilities. Although judges don’t have to disclose gifts, the state
prohibits them from accepting gifts from certain people, particularly parties
in cases pending before them, and imposes some restrictions to what they
can receive. But the judicial ethics rules have loopholes. For example,
judges are allowed to receive gifts worth any amount on their wedding or
25th and 50th wedding anniversaries. Iowa scored just 2.5 out of 20 possible
points in the investments category. The state does not require judges to
report investment transactions or the amount of income earned from investments.
Judges do not have to disclose any information about their family members
in their annual financial disclosures.</p>
<h4>Highlights:</h4>
<p>Iowa’s real estate reporting requirements are particularly poor. When
disclosing their real estate interests, judges are only required to report
“the nature of real estate that generated more than $1,000 in annual gross
income.” The form instructions state that they should not list “the location,
address, or legal description of the property.” Justice Daryl Hecht’s 2012
financial disclosure is evidence of those unspecific reporting requirements.
Under the real estate section of his form, he states: “Farm real estate.”</p>
</div>
<div class="reports" data-state="Iowa"></div>
<div class="card" data-state="Iowa"></div>
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<script src="//d32kn01rfn0r98.cloudfront.net/apps/2013/07/statescdisclosure/script.min.js"
type="text/javascript"></script>Chris Zubak-Skeeshttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/chris-zubak-skeesReity O'Brienhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/reity-obrienKytja Weirhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/kytja-weirChris Younghttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/chris-youngNew Mexico earns ‘F’ for judicial financial disclosurehttp://www.publicintegrity.org/node/13748We graded each state on judicial financial disclosure.New Mexico2014-05-19T12:19:51-04:002013-12-04T00:01:00-05:00<div class="stateSupremeCourtDisclosure">
<div class="page">
<div class="stateFace">f</div>
<p class="intro">The Center for Public Integrity <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13808/state-supreme-court-judges-reveal-scant-financial-information">evaluated the disclosure rules</a> for
judges in the highest state courts nationwide. The <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13809/methodology-how-we-graded-state-supreme-court-financial-disclosure">level of disclosure</a> in
the 50 states and the District of Columbia was poor, with <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13805/how-states-scored-judicial-financial-disclosures">43 receiving failing grades</a>,
making it difficult for the public to identify potential conflicts of interest
on the bench. Despite the lack of information in the public records, the
Center’s investigation found nearly three dozen <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13815/justices-ruled-their-own-financial-interests">conflicts</a>,
questionable gifts and entanglements among top judges around the country.
Here’s what the Center found in New Mexico:</p>
<div class="profile">
<div class="gradeContainer" data-state="New Mexico"></div>
<h4>Strengths:</h4>
<p>New Mexico justices must fill out two sets of disclosures: one with the
Secretary of State’s office and one with the court system.</p>
<h4>Weaknesses:</h4>
<p>The state does not ask judges to disclose any investments except for real
estate owned within the state — not including their primary homes. New
Mexico also does not ask for information about any gifts received, whether
given directly or in the form of waived fees or reimbursed expenses.</p>
<h4>Highlights:</h4>
<p>The forms from the Secretary of State’s Office were once posted online
but not anymore. The practice ceased in 2013 because the law apparently
doesn’t call for it. “The Office of the Secretary of State supports transparency
and openness in government, however at this time there is no authorization
in statute that permits us to provide these disclosures online,” wrote
spokesman Ken Ortiz in an email. “When the legislature authorizes us to
do so, we will provide them immediately.”</p>
</div>
<div class="reports" data-state="New Mexico"></div>
<div class="card" data-state="New Mexico"></div>
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type="text/javascript"></script>Chris Zubak-Skeeshttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/chris-zubak-skeesReity O'Brienhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/reity-obrienKytja Weirhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/kytja-weirChris Younghttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/chris-youngWashington earns ‘D’ for judicial financial disclosurehttp://www.publicintegrity.org/node/13764We graded each state on judicial financial disclosure.Washington2014-05-19T12:19:51-04:002013-12-04T00:01:00-05:00<div class="stateSupremeCourtDisclosure">
<div class="page">
<div class="stateFace">u</div>
<p class="intro">The Center for Public Integrity <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13808/state-supreme-court-judges-reveal-scant-financial-information">evaluated the disclosure rules</a> for
judges in the highest state courts nationwide. The <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13809/methodology-how-we-graded-state-supreme-court-financial-disclosure">level of disclosure</a> in
the 50 states and the District of Columbia was poor, with <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13805/how-states-scored-judicial-financial-disclosures">43 receiving failing grades</a>,
making it difficult for the public to identify potential conflicts of interest
on the bench. Despite the lack of information in the public records, the
Center’s investigation found nearly three dozen <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13815/justices-ruled-their-own-financial-interests">conflicts</a>,
questionable gifts and entanglements among top judges around the country.
Here’s what the Center found in Washington:</p>
<div class="profile">
<div class="gradeContainer" data-state="Washington"></div>
<h4>Strengths:</h4>
<p>Washington, which boasts the third-highest score, attaches strong enforcement
measures to its financial disclosure rules: judges can face civil, and
potentially criminal, penalties for violating reporting rules. The Evergreen
State also requires judges to disclose household income sources beyond
their government salaries. Judges who own 10 percent or more in a business
must report extensive information about such interests, including payments
from government agencies and names of customers who generate more than
$10,000 in income. Though the state fails to ask for the exact dollar values
associated with various assets, judges must report such values in ranges.
Washington’s five-tier value ranges are narrower — and subsequently more
transparent — than in most other states.</p>
<h4>Weaknesses:</h4>
<p>Washington fails to ask judges about the gifts they and their immediate
family members receive. The state seeks more detailed investment information
than many other states but it doesn’t require judges to report investment
transactions.</p>
<h4>Highlights:</h4>
<p>Though Washington fails to ask members of its highest court to disclose
gifts, the state <a href="http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=42.52.150">restricts</a>
all
public officials from accepting gifts worth more than $50. Allowable gifts
could include floral arrangements, plaques and trophies, according to Andrea
McNamara Doyle, executive director of the state’s public disclosure commission.
In a letter to the Center, Doyle wrote that disclosure of such low-value
gifts is “arguably unnecessary” and felt it “hardly seems to merit a significant
downgrading of disclosures systems that do not require the reporting of
these de minimis items.” Still, Washington judges could receive “unsolicited
tokens or awards of appreciation” worth more than $50 yet still not have
to report them.</p>
</div>
<div class="reports" data-state="Washington"></div>
<div class="card" data-state="Washington"></div>
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type="text/javascript"></script>Chris Zubak-Skeeshttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/chris-zubak-skeesReity O'Brienhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/reity-obrienKytja Weirhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/kytja-weirChris Younghttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/chris-youngAlabama earns ‘F’ for judicial financial disclosurehttp://www.publicintegrity.org/node/13717We graded each state on judicial financial disclosure.Alabama2014-05-19T12:19:51-04:002013-12-04T00:01:00-05:00 <div class="stateSupremeCourtDisclosure">
<div class="page"><div class="stateFace">B</div><p class="intro">The Center for Public Integrity <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13808/state-supreme-court-judges-reveal-scant-financial-information">evaluated the disclosure rules</a> for judges in the highest state courts nationwide. The <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13809/methodology-how-we-graded-state-supreme-court-financial-disclosure">level of disclosure</a> in the 50 states and the District of Columbia was poor, with <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13805/how-states-scored-judicial-financial-disclosures">43 receiving failing grades</a>, making it difficult for the public to identify potential conflicts of interest on the bench. Despite the lack of information in the public records, the Center’s investigation found nearly three dozen <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13815/justices-ruled-their-own-financial-interests">conflicts</a>, questionable gifts and entanglements among top judges around the country. Here’s what the Center found in Alabama:</p><div class="profile"><div class="gradeContainer" data-state="Alabama"></div><h4>Strengths:</h4><p>
Alabama is one of just 12 states
that post at least some portion of its judges’ financial
disclosures online for the public to view.
As a result, Alabama scored a perfect 10 out of 10 for allowing easy
access to the annual reports. The state also fared well in the
outside income category, scoring 15 out of 20 possible points. Judges
must also list companies that employ their spouses.</p><h4>Weaknesses:</h4><p>
Alabama has no requirements for judges to disclose gifts they
receive. The state’s Ethics Commission sets a $25 limit on each
gift received up to $50 from a single source in a year.
However such rules do have loopholes, including only asking for the
face value
of tickets in a state where the Auburn University and University of
Alabama football rivalry is legendary. “Those tickets could sell
for $10,000 if people would offer them,” said Alabama Ethics
Commission General Counsel Hugh Evans. The state also does not
require any disclosures of paid trips, waived conference fees or
similar reimbursements. “The form
has not been changed in almost 40 years, and it’s unlikely
that it’s going to be changed,” said James Sumner, director of
the Alabama Ethics Commission. Sumner said that’s because the state
legislature doesn’t seem to have the appetite for beefing up the
current financial disclosure requirements. In 2010, when the
legislature passed <a href="http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2010/12/ethics_reform_in_alabama_may_b.html">sweeping
ethics reforms</a>,
Sumner says lawmakers declined to adopt a proposal that would have
narrowed the broad dollar ranges used when officials report
investments. “We got no movement on that at all,” he said. In
addition to filing an annual Statement of Economic Interests form
with the state Ethics Commission, Alabama judges must submit a
<a href="http://judicial.alabama.gov/docs/fin_disclosure_form.pdf">separate
financial disclosure</a>
to the clerk of the Supreme Court. But that report is kept sealed and
confidential.</p><h4>Highlights:</h4><ul><li>In
2010, Alabama Supreme Court Justice Jacquelyn Stuart wrote the
<a href="http://www.alabamaappellatewatch.com/uploads/file/1090425.PDF">majority
opinion</a> in a
ruling that <a href="http://www.nasdaq.com/article/regions-financial-gets-suit-dismissed-cm38769">dismissed
a securities-fraud lawsuit</a>
brought by a group of shareholders against Regions Financial Corp.
Stuart reported earning dividends from Regions Financial and its
banking subsidiary, Regions Bank, in disclosure reports dating back
to 2007.
In 2010, specifically, Stuart reported receiving less than $1,000 in
dividends from Regions Financial. As to how much her investment is
in Regions, we can’t tell from the disclosure. The state only
requires judges to report stock ownership if it totals a 5 percent
or more interest. It would take some doing to reach that threshold —
the bank’s market capitalization is about $13 billion.</li>
<li>In
February 2010, Stuart joined a <a href="http://www.alabamalitigationreview.com/uploads/file/Ex%20parte%203M%20Company(1).pdf">unanimous
court decision</a>
in a case involving 3M. In the case, 3M and a handful of other
companies petitioned the Supreme Court for a change of venue related
to a class-action lawsuit brought by Alabama landowners who claimed
that the companies had polluted their property with dangerous
chemicals. The court granted the companies’ request. Stuart’s
2010 disclosure lists less than $1,000 in dividend earnings from the
company.</li>
</ul><p>In
an emailed statement, Stuart declined to comment about her stock
ownership but pointed to Alabama’s Code of Judicial Ethics,
including one section that states: “Ownership of a <i>de minimis</i>
portion of the securities of a publicly traded corporation is not a
‘financial interest.’ A ‘<i>de minimis</i>’ portion is an interest
that could not raise a reasonable question as to a judge’s
impartiality.”</p></div><div class="reports" data-state="Alabama"></div><div class="card" data-state="Alabama"></div></div></div>
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type="text/javascript"></script>Chris Zubak-Skeeshttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/chris-zubak-skeesReity O'Brienhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/reity-obrienKytja Weirhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/kytja-weirChris Younghttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/chris-youngKansas earns ‘F’ for judicial financial disclosurehttp://www.publicintegrity.org/node/13733We graded each state on judicial financial disclosure.Kansas2014-05-19T12:19:51-04:002013-12-04T00:01:00-05:00<div class="stateSupremeCourtDisclosure">
<div class="page">
<div class="stateFace">P</div>
<p class="intro">The Center for Public Integrity <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13808/state-supreme-court-judges-reveal-scant-financial-information">evaluated the disclosure rules</a> for
judges in the highest state courts nationwide. The <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13809/methodology-how-we-graded-state-supreme-court-financial-disclosure">level of disclosure</a> in
the 50 states and the District of Columbia was poor, with <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13805/how-states-scored-judicial-financial-disclosures">43 receiving failing grades</a>,
making it difficult for the public to identify potential conflicts of interest
on the bench. Despite the lack of information in the public records, the
Center’s investigation found nearly three dozen <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13815/justices-ruled-their-own-financial-interests">conflicts</a>,
questionable gifts and entanglements among top judges around the country.
Here’s what the Center found in Kansas:</p>
<div class="profile">
<div class="gradeContainer" data-state="Kansas"></div>
<h4>Strengths:</h4>
<p>Kansas fell only two points short of earning a “D” for its financial disclosure
requirements. Compared with other states, Kansas requires fairly detailed
reporting of income, gifts, travel and conference reimbursements and personal
liability information. The state’s requirement that judges report financial
information about their family members bolstered its score. Kansas scored
better than most states in the liabilities category because judges must
describe each liability and disclose the name of each creditor.</p>
<h4>Weaknesses:</h4>
<p>Judges on Kansas’ highest court need to report little about their personal
investments. Judges are not required to report investment income. Nor are
they asked to disclose the value of their investments or report any transactions
made during the reporting year. Also, Kansas’ reporting threshold for liabilities
is fairly high compared to other states. Judges only have to list creditors
to whom they or their family members owed more than $10,000 at any time
during the reporting period. The state does not require judges to report
how much they owe their creditors, either in exact amounts or ranges.</p>
<h4>Highlights:</h4>
<p>Kansas is one of many states that do not require judges to disclose when
they acquire and dispose of investments, making it difficult to determine
if a judge owned a particular stock when the company appeared before the
judge in court. Marla Luckert’s 2012 financial disclosure, for example,
shows she and her husband were shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway in 2012,
suggesting that she should not have authored a <a href="http://www.kscourts.org/Cases-and-Opinions/Opinions/SupCt/2012/20120511/103233.pdf">court
opinion</a> involving a subsidiary of the company. But Luckert said the
Supreme Court ruled on the case in May 2012 and she and her husband did
not acquire the shares until August.</p>
</div>
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type="text/javascript"></script>Chris Zubak-Skeeshttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/chris-zubak-skeesReity O'Brienhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/reity-obrienKytja Weirhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/kytja-weirChris Younghttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/chris-youngNew York earns ‘F’ for judicial financial disclosurehttp://www.publicintegrity.org/node/13749We graded each state on judicial financial disclosure.New York2014-05-19T12:19:51-04:002013-12-04T00:01:00-05:00<div class="stateSupremeCourtDisclosure">
<div class="page">
<div class="stateFace">h</div>
<p class="intro">The Center for Public Integrity <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13808/state-supreme-court-judges-reveal-scant-financial-information">evaluated the disclosure rules</a> for
judges in the highest state courts nationwide. The <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13809/methodology-how-we-graded-state-supreme-court-financial-disclosure">level of disclosure</a> in
the 50 states and the District of Columbia was poor, with <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13805/how-states-scored-judicial-financial-disclosures">43 receiving failing grades</a>,
making it difficult for the public to identify potential conflicts of interest
on the bench. Despite the lack of information in the public records, the
Center’s investigation found nearly three dozen <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13815/justices-ruled-their-own-financial-interests">conflicts</a>,
questionable gifts and entanglements among top judges around the country.
Here’s what the Center found in New York:</p>
<div class="profile">
<div class="gradeContainer" data-state="New York"></div>
<h4>Strengths:</h4>
<p>New York asks for detailed information about the financial interests of
the judiciary, including for its highest court, known as the Court of Appeals.
(Unlike other states, what is called the
<a href="http://www.nycourts.gov/courts/structure.shtml">Supreme
Court in New York is actually a trial-level court</a>
with branches in
each county.) The state requires judges to report how much income they
earned from investments — such as rents, dividends or property sales —
not just the name of the investment.</p>
<h4>Weaknesses:</h4>
<p>While New York asks judges to disclose such extensive information about
their financial interests, it does not require all of that information
to be publicly reported. The state redacts all dollar values, whether reported
as actual amounts or in ranges, from the reports made publicly available.
The Center did not give credit for such disclosures because they are not
made public. The state also has one of the loosest standards for when judges
need to report gifts: it asks for information only on items worth more
than $1,000.</p>
<h4>Highlights:</h4>
<p>The rules for real estate disclosures are limited. For example, judges
are not required to list ownership of a “secondary personal” home unless
it is jointly owned with someone who is not a relative. Only two of the
state’s seven high court judges reported owning any real estate by that
measure in their 2012 filings.</p>
</div>
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type="text/javascript"></script>Chris Zubak-Skeeshttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/chris-zubak-skeesReity O'Brienhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/reity-obrienKytja Weirhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/kytja-weirChris Younghttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/chris-youngWest Virginia earns ‘F’ for judicial financial disclosurehttp://www.publicintegrity.org/node/13765We graded each state on judicial financial disclosure.West Virginia2014-05-19T12:19:51-04:002013-12-04T00:01:00-05:00<div class="stateSupremeCourtDisclosure">
<div class="page">
<div class="stateFace">w</div>
<p class="intro">The Center for Public Integrity <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13808/state-supreme-court-judges-reveal-scant-financial-information">evaluated the disclosure rules</a> for
judges in the highest state courts nationwide. The <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13809/methodology-how-we-graded-state-supreme-court-financial-disclosure">level of disclosure</a> in
the 50 states and the District of Columbia was poor, with <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13805/how-states-scored-judicial-financial-disclosures">43 receiving failing grades</a>,
making it difficult for the public to identify potential conflicts of interest
on the bench. Despite the lack of information in the public records, the
Center’s investigation found nearly three dozen <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13815/justices-ruled-their-own-financial-interests">conflicts</a>,
questionable gifts and entanglements among top judges around the country.
Here’s what the Center found in West Virginia:</p>
<div class="profile">
<div class="gradeContainer" data-state="West Virginia"></div>
<h4>Strengths:</h4>
<p>West Virginia judges file two separate financial disclosure forms — one
with the state Ethics Commission, the other with the state Supreme Court.
The state scored most of its points in the outside income, accountability
and accessibility categories. West Virginia earned a perfect score in the
accountability section because judges can face misdemeanor charges for
knowingly filing false reports. The state also earned 7.5 out of 10 points
for making half of its reports available for public inspection online.
(Disclosures filed with the West Virginia Ethics Commission are posted
online; those filed with the Supreme Court, however, are not.) The state
earned 15 out of 20 points in the outside income category because judges
must report the source of any income they or their spouses receive.</p>
<h4>Weaknesses:</h4>
<p>West Virginia asks little about the investments of its high court judges,
who aren’t required to disclose income, transactions or the value associated
with each investment — just the name of the asset.</p>
<h4>Highlights:</h4>
<p>The state restricts public officials from accepting gifts worth $25 or
more from lobbyists or parties likely to come before them. However, it
is nearly impossible for judges to anticipate who might appear before their
court. Joan Parker, executive director of the West Virginia Ethics Commission,
acknowledged that the statewide gift laws do not always “match up nicely”
with judicial ethics standards. Additionally, judges may accept unlimited
food and drink as long as the donor is present for the meal.</p>
</div>
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<script src="//d32kn01rfn0r98.cloudfront.net/apps/2013/07/statescdisclosure/script.min.js"
type="text/javascript"></script>Chris Zubak-Skeeshttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/chris-zubak-skeesReity O'Brienhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/reity-obrienKytja Weirhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/kytja-weirChris Younghttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/chris-youngAlaska earns ‘F’ for judicial financial disclosurehttp://www.publicintegrity.org/node/13718We graded each state on judicial financial disclosure.Alaska2014-05-19T12:19:51-04:002013-12-04T00:01:00-05:00<div class="stateSupremeCourtDisclosure">
<div class="page">
<div class="stateFace">A</div>
<p class="intro">The Center for Public Integrity <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13808/state-supreme-court-judges-reveal-scant-financial-information">evaluated the disclosure rules</a> for
judges in the highest state courts nationwide. The <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13809/methodology-how-we-graded-state-supreme-court-financial-disclosure">level of disclosure</a> in
the 50 states and the District of Columbia was poor, with <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13805/how-states-scored-judicial-financial-disclosures">43 receiving failing grades</a>,
making it difficult for the public to identify potential conflicts of interest
on the bench. Despite the lack of information in the public records, the
Center’s investigation found nearly three dozen <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13815/justices-ruled-their-own-financial-interests">conflicts</a>,
questionable gifts and entanglements among top judges around the country.
Here’s what the Center found in Alaska:</p>
<div class="profile">
<div class="gradeContainer" data-state="Alaska"></div>
<h4>Strengths:</h4>
<p>Alaska, ranked 10th, requires judges to disclose not only their own financial
interests, but also the financial interests of their spouses/domestic partners
and children. Judges must report the source of any gift worth more than
$250, as well as a description of each gift. However, the state lost points
because it requires gift values to be reported only in dollar ranges, rather
than in exact amounts. The same reporting requirements apply for disclosing
reimbursements of travel, meals and other expenses. The state earned full
credit in the accountability category because judges who fail to file,
or who knowingly file false or misleading disclosures, can be charged with
a misdemeanor.</p>
<h4>Weaknesses:</h4>
<p>Alaska seeks little information about a judge’s financial liabilities.
Judges report only the names of their creditors. But they don’t have to
report how much they owe. The state also lost points for making judges
report their income in broad ranges rather than in exact dollar amounts.
But that wasn’t always the case. As recently as 2010, judges had to disclose
their income in exact amounts. However, Jerry Anderson of the Alaska Public
Offices Commission said the state changed to dollar ranges starting in
2011 after officials raised concerns that reporting specific amounts might
force officials to reveal “proprietary bidding” pricing for certain jobs.</p>
<h4>Highlights:</h4>
<p>Rich with oil and natural gas, the state includes a section on its financial
disclosure forms for judges and other public officials to report any natural
resource leases they hold. Officials must report mineral, timber, oil and
gas leases. Additionally, judges are required to disclose any “close economic
associations” they may have with legislators, other public officials and
lobbyists.</p>
</div>
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type="text/javascript"></script>Chris Zubak-Skeeshttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/chris-zubak-skeesReity O'Brienhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/reity-obrienKytja Weirhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/kytja-weirChris Younghttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/chris-youngKentucky earns ‘F’ for judicial financial disclosurehttp://www.publicintegrity.org/node/13734We graded each state on judicial financial disclosure.Kentucky2014-05-19T12:19:51-04:002013-12-04T00:01:00-05:00<div class="stateSupremeCourtDisclosure">
<div class="page">
<div class="stateFace">Q</div>
<p class="intro">The Center for Public Integrity <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13808/state-supreme-court-judges-reveal-scant-financial-information">evaluated the disclosure rules</a> for
judges in the highest state courts nationwide. The <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13809/methodology-how-we-graded-state-supreme-court-financial-disclosure">level of disclosure</a> in
the 50 states and the District of Columbia was poor, with <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13805/how-states-scored-judicial-financial-disclosures">43 receiving failing grades</a>,
making it difficult for the public to identify potential conflicts of interest
on the bench. Despite the lack of information in the public records, the
Center’s investigation found nearly three dozen <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13815/justices-ruled-their-own-financial-interests">conflicts</a>,
questionable gifts and entanglements among top judges around the country.
Here’s what the Center found in Kentucky:</p>
<div class="profile">
<div class="gradeContainer" data-state="Kentucky"></div>
<h4>Strengths:</h4>
<p>There are few strengths to tout about Kentucky’s financial disclosure
requirements. However, the state does attach strong enforcement measures
to its financial disclosure rules. Supreme Court justices who fail to file
or who report fraudulent information risk losing their seat on the bench.</p>
<h4>Weaknesses:</h4>
<p>Kentucky’s financial disclosure form includes sections in which judges
must disclose stocks, real estate and outside employers, but it also tells
judges that they are “not required” to provide names of companies in which
they have a financial interest. By omitting company names, it is practically
impossible to identify possible conflicts of interest. Additionally, Kentucky
fails to ask for information about the gifts or reimbursed expenses its
judges receive.</p>
<h4>Highlights:</h4>
<p>Justice Will Scott’s form reveals ownership interests in dozens of tracts
of Kentucky real estate, many of which he leases to coal, oil and natural
gas companies. Unlike his colleagues, Scott does name the companies to
which he leases land. In a phone interview, Scott said he would welcome
more robust financial disclosure requirements. He said it would be important
to know the names of companies because the disclosures are "a search tool
for people coming up on appeal." As for his own real estate holdings, Scott
said he tries to stay aware of his oil and gas leases and to recuse himself
in any cases in which companies have paid him royalties.</p>
</div>
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type="text/javascript"></script>Chris Zubak-Skeeshttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/chris-zubak-skeesReity O'Brienhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/reity-obrienKytja Weirhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/kytja-weirChris Younghttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/chris-youngNorth Carolina earns ‘F’ for judicial financial disclosurehttp://www.publicintegrity.org/node/13750We graded each state on judicial financial disclosure.North Carolina2014-05-19T12:19:51-04:002013-12-04T00:01:00-05:00<div class="stateSupremeCourtDisclosure">
<div class="page">
<div class="stateFace">a</div>
<p class="intro">The Center for Public Integrity <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13808/state-supreme-court-judges-reveal-scant-financial-information">evaluated the disclosure rules</a> for
judges in the highest state courts nationwide. The <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13809/methodology-how-we-graded-state-supreme-court-financial-disclosure">level of disclosure</a> in
the 50 states and the District of Columbia was poor, with <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13805/how-states-scored-judicial-financial-disclosures">43 receiving failing grades</a>,
making it difficult for the public to identify potential conflicts of interest
on the bench. Despite the lack of information in the public records, the
Center’s investigation found nearly three dozen <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13815/justices-ruled-their-own-financial-interests">conflicts</a>,
questionable gifts and entanglements among top judges around the country.
Here’s what the Center found in North Carolina:</p>
<div class="profile">
<div class="gradeContainer" data-state="North Carolina"></div>
<h4>Strengths:</h4>
<p>North Carolina ranks in 25th place with two sets of disclosure forms for
justices to fill out each year. Its disclosure rules are tailored to the
state and go beyond the extent of many other states’ rules in some areas.
For example, North Carolina asks any judges who have been appointed whether
they have contributed financially to the person who appointed them. One
form also asks whether anyone in the judge’s family works for a nonprofit
organization that has received state funds or does business with the state.</p>
<h4>Weaknesses:</h4>
<p>The rules also limit the extent of what is disclosed. For example, they
only seek information about property owned within the state. The rules
also do not require judges to provide the names of creditors. The gift
policy is confusing due to the two different forms. On one, gifts worth
more than $500 must be reported. On the other, they must be reported if
they were received when both the giver and the judge were outside of the
state and the value exceeds $200 per quarter.</p>
<p>Separately, if Supreme Court justices do violate judicial ethics rules,
they now face disciplinary action from their peers. A <a href="http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/Sessions/2013/Bills/House/PDF/H652v5.pdf">law
passed in August 2013</a>
took away the independent powers of the state’s
judicial standards commission to publicly reprimand judges and gave that
power to the Supreme Court.</p>
<h4>Highlights:</h4>
<p>Justice Paul Newby disclosed earning income from the Tobacco Transition
Payment Program, in which money from a settlement with tobacco companies
goes to former tobacco farmers to help them transition to other types of
farming. In 2005 and 2009, he authored two opinions related to the program,
known as the tobacco buyout. For the <a href="http://appellate.nccourts.org/opinions/?c=1&amp;pdf=MjAwNS8yUEEwNS0xLnBkZg==">2005
case</a>, he was among five of seven North Carolina justices who had ties
to tobacco companies, <a href="http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20050114/NEWS/201140304">according
to news reports</a>. The court had disclosed the conflicts and asked the
two sides whether they wanted the justices to hear the case despite their
involvement. The court’s ruling provided a green light for the payments
to farmers, including Newby. In the <a href="http://appellate.nccourts.org/opinions/?c=1&amp;pdf=MjAwOS8yQTA1LTQucGRm">2009
case</a>, the ruling he wrote meant that the tobacco giants no longer
had to make payments to former tobacco farmers in Maryland and Pennsylvania.
As a North Carolina farmer, though, his payments, once estimated at $35,700
over a ten-year period for his Wake County farm, were not affected. He
declined to comment to the Center, via his law clerk.</p>
<p>Justice Robert Edmunds presided over three cases in which he reported
owning a financial interest in the companies named in the cases. The rulings
favored his financial interest in two of the three cases:</p>
<p>In 2009 and 2010, Edmunds reported owning Abbott Laboratories’ stock,
yet he <a href="http://appellate.nccourts.org/opinions/?c=1&amp;pdf=MjAxMC82N1BBMDktMS5wZGY=">wrote
a 2010 decision</a> that sided with the company. The case hinged on whether
lawyers from out of state, representing a mother whose baby died, should
have been allowed to try the case against a hospital and Abbott, which
made the baby formula her infant drank. The Supreme Court upheld the trial
judge’s power to bar the out-of-state attorneys from the case for alleged
misconduct.</p>
<p>Edmunds also reported owning Wells Fargo stock in 2011 but was part of
a
<a href="http://www.aoc.state.nc.us/www/public/html/ar/supremecourt/11_10_11/260A11-1.pdf">decision</a>
that
favored Wells Fargo. The court’s ruling upheld a lower court’s decision
about proving who held a loan in a foreclosure case. The court found that
Wells Fargo did not need to present an original note to show it held the
mortgage.</p>
<p>Edmunds reported owning Duke Energy stock in 2012, yet he participated
in a case involving the energy company that year. Ultimately, the court
did not side with the energy company in its 2013 decision, though, and
<a
href="http://appellate.nccourts.org/opinions/?c=1&amp;pdf=MjAxMy8yNjhBMTItMS5wZGY=">overturned a substantial rate hike sought by Duke Energy</a>.</p>
<p>Edmunds told the Center there was no conflict for him to preside in those
cases. “Our ethical rules allow participation if the ownership is <i>de minimis</i>,”
he said, using the Latin term to describe a trivial amount. “It was so
miniscule. … It effectively means whatever decision I make will not have
any impact on my financial situation.”</p>
<p>North Carolina’s forms, however, only require that judges report investments
worth at least $10,000. Edmunds declined to say how much his stake in the
companies was worth. “Our job is to make decisions and not to try to get
out of cases,” he said.</p>
</div>
<div class="reports" data-state="North Carolina"></div>
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<script src="//d32kn01rfn0r98.cloudfront.net/apps/2013/07/statescdisclosure/script.min.js"
type="text/javascript"></script>Chris Zubak-Skeeshttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/chris-zubak-skeesReity O'Brienhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/reity-obrienKytja Weirhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/kytja-weirChris Younghttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/chris-youngWisconsin earns ‘F’ for judicial financial disclosurehttp://www.publicintegrity.org/node/13766We graded each state on judicial financial disclosure.Wisconsin2014-05-19T12:19:51-04:002013-12-04T00:01:00-05:00<div class="stateSupremeCourtDisclosure">
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<p class="intro">The Center for Public Integrity <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13808/state-supreme-court-judges-reveal-scant-financial-information">evaluated the disclosure rules</a> for
judges in the highest state courts nationwide. The <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13809/methodology-how-we-graded-state-supreme-court-financial-disclosure">level of disclosure</a> in
the 50 states and the District of Columbia was poor, with <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13805/how-states-scored-judicial-financial-disclosures">43 receiving failing grades</a>,
making it difficult for the public to identify potential conflicts of interest
on the bench. Despite the lack of information in the public records, the
Center’s investigation found nearly three dozen <a href="//www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/04/13815/justices-ruled-their-own-financial-interests">conflicts</a>,
questionable gifts and entanglements among top judges around the country.
Here’s what the Center found in Wisconsin:</p>
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<div class="gradeContainer" data-state="Wisconsin"></div>
<h4>Strengths:</h4>
<p>Despite its failing grade, Wisconsin scored better than many states and
tied for 14th overall with Tennessee in the Center’s study. The state seeks
information in each of the Center’s grading categories, including asking
for disclosure of all gifts worth more than $50, an unusually low reporting
threshold among the states. It also asks about commercial clients and tenants,
along with business partners for any businesses owned by the judge’s family.</p>
<h4>Weaknesses:</h4>
<p>The state’s Supreme Court has become a poster child for ethical problems,
with three of the sitting justices having faced ethical inquiries, including
one for allegedly trying to choke another justice. The court has been sharply
divided along political lines — an especially sticky issue when ethical
issues emerge because the justices are involved with the discipline for
such violations, even when their fellow justices are involved. For example,
Justice Michael Gableman’s peers deadlocked 3-3 in a June 2010 vote to
determine whether he had violated ethics rules with a campaign ad. Then
last year, the court again deadlocked by the same margin on whether he
could hear cases involving an attorney who provided him with free legal
counsel during that 2010 ethics probe, <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/gableman-will-not-have-to-recuse-himself-in-law-firms-cases-2661dsf-161500655.html">as
reported by the <i>Milwaukee Journal Sentinel</i></a>. His financial interest
forms do not disclose the free legal service. The state does ask for the
value of judges’ investments and liabilities but only in broad ranges,
from $5,000 to $50,000 or greater than $50,000. It requires real estate
ownership to be disclosed only for properties owned within Wisconsin.</p>
<h4>Highlights:</h4>
<p>Justice Annette Ziegler reported owning more than $50,000 worth of both
Merck &amp; Co. and Johnson &amp; Johnson stock in 2012, yet she took part
in a decision involving the drug companies as defendants in
<a href="http://www.wicourts.gov/sc/opinion/DisplayDocument.html?content=html&amp;seqNo=83980">a
multi-party case</a>
in which the state accused pharmaceutical manufacturers
of charging inflated drug prices to the state’s Medicaid system. Three
other justices did not participate in the case.</p>
<p>This was not the first time Ziegler participated in case where she had
a stake in one of the participants. The Wisconsin Judicial Commission sent
her a warning letter about such conflicts in 2007 after the <a href="http://host.madison.com/news/ziegler-owns-stock-in-companies-before-her-high-court-candidate/article_326846f5-e94c-5cbb-8e30-ec1b9fbed829.html"><i>Wisconsin State Journal</i> found she had presided in 22 cases</a>,
when she was a trial judge, involving companies in which she owned at least
$50,000 in stock. At the time, she apologized.</p>
<p>In 2010, Ziegler also reported that her family owed more than $50,000
to Town Bank, yet she wrote <a href="http://statecasefiles.justia.com/documents/wisconsin/supreme-court/2008AP001845-(2010-12-14).pdf?ts=1370456778">an
opinion in favor of the bank</a>
that year in a dispute over a commercial
loan for a 22-story building in downtown Milwaukee. The bank is a Wisconsin-based
community bank with just seven branches, according to the FDIC. Her husband,
J.J. Ziegler, is a prominent commercial real estate developer who has served
on the board of another community bank. Ziegler did not return multiple
calls for comment.</p>
<p>Justice Ann Walsh Bradley took part in a decision affirming a court of
appeals ruling in <i><a href="http://wicourts.gov/sc/opinion/DisplayDocument.pdf?content=pdf&amp;seqNo=59611">Nestle USA Inc. v. Wisconsin Department of Revenue</a></i>
in 2011, despite
reporting ownership of at least $5,000 worth of Nestle stock. The decision,
though, went against the company, which had challenged a tax assessment
of a powdered infant formula plant. The judge declined to comment.</p>
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<div class="reports" data-state="Wisconsin"></div>
<div class="card" data-state="Wisconsin"></div>
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type="text/javascript"></script>Chris Zubak-Skeeshttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/chris-zubak-skeesReity O'Brienhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/reity-obrienKytja Weirhttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/kytja-weirChris Younghttp://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/chris-young